Morally Gray Imperative
by arjuna.bleu
Summary: Post Brave New World. The Haitian and Angela Petrelli are manipulating events from unseen corners once more, but our Heroes have much more pressing problems. Is Claire being consumed by his madness? Always smut.
1. Time To Pretend

Morally Gray Imperative

Part 1: Time to Pretend

"I told you I wasn't ready yet, Pete," he snaps, pinning thick dark hair with one hand. In light of the disdain that she experiences at agreeing with him, she merely nods with her lips pressed together-holding in the unnameable frustration. Sylar turns his back to them and crouches over his current painting. His canvas leans against a stack of more paintings. In fact, the room is lined with them, and they trickle around the corners and down through the nearest corridor of Angela Petrelli's mansion-like condo. He works with fury and focus. His hands deftly dole out paint, swipe the brush, mix, apply, repeat. "I am not ready," he says again quietly.

Claire curls her arms tight around her abdomen. Despite the Petrelli couture she represents picturesquely in her chic Chanel beige tweed dress suit and Christian Louboutin tan pumps, the sight of Sylar still brings out the fear in her every time. Even now, despite her acting as the poster girl of the movement and suffering non-stop publicity-adding a face to the surfacing mutants and genetic oddities-her whole world is only the size of a coffee table. Its cold, solid platform is an island of involuntary commitment. _"How do we make love stay?"_ he had said to her.

Sylar's head sways left to right just as the thought breezes through her mind, a chill following it, and he snaps upright striding out of the room. Peter and Claire hear him throw open the parlor doors. The painting he leaves behind appears finished, wet paint glistening. Sixty, perhaps ninety uncomfortable seconds of silence have passed since Peter led unaware Claire into this most distasteful reunion. "What is this about, Peter?" She is trying to control her temper, but it burns.

"I know this is the last thing you need on your plate right now, but you have to help us. You can help him, Claire. Just talk to him. Please, for me?" Peter slips his coat over his white paramedic shirt to ward off the wet weather and leans in to kiss her forehead. He ruffles her blonde curls when he leans back, "you look beautiful, Claire. You are all grown up, and this is something that can be made right." She presses her lips together once more at this.

Peter is already gone when Sylar returns with a stack of canvases. He moves from one to the next, leaving them lined against the walls and multiplying nearly by the minute. He tears off a fresh piece of wax paper to mix paint on and moves to a new canvas again. Claire watches, her ears burning and anger burgeoning. What could Peter possibly hope to make right? This man took her mother from her... her father, her innocence. He achieved what no previous trauma could. He had broken her spirit.

_This is about that dream of Matt's they had... again... _she thinks. Sylar's head tilts to the right, and he pauses just slightly before reaching out once again with the brush. "So... uh, obviously you found an outlet for your... memorium list or whatever you were calling it. Peter told me," she settles on. Her heart pounds. Damn her grandmother. Damn her uncle. _Stand up straight, girl, and do not fiddle with your hands-_she can hear Tracy coaching her; _when you are most at a loss you must appear confident._ Inter-relations. She can do this.

"This is back work," Sylar says. He pauses, and it is long enough for her to become curious. She leans to the side, safely keeping her five foot distance, and takes a peek at his painting. Tones of gray, and a young couple wrapped in each others arms sitting in a snowy embankment. They have dark hair and large white smiles. It is sweet, touching even. He stands up again, and Claire is startled to discover she has stepped forward two feet and, though it is not quite within arms reach, the dark expanse of his shoulders is nearer than she has been to him in quite some time.

He is aware of how Peter and she argue over this. She tells him it was a fever dream-a sickness. This man is a monster, a beast that comes roaring in nearly all her nightmares. Can't he see? Peter is steadfast, though, which is why they are nearly alone together. Angela is somewhere in the condo and there is a staff on hand; but here in the foyer and den there is only Sylar, Claire, and somewhere near two hundred paintings. "I hit a wall," he says with his back to her still. "How... how can I help you?" She is trying to be patient, but it comes as a hiss between her teeth anyway.

He reaches into his shirt pocket and pulls out a small silver digital camera. When he turns to face her his eyes are averted, looking at the camera's screen. He takes a step forward, and now there is only two feet between them. Then his hand is extending, and there is only a foot. The camera is in his hand, but her stomach is clenched unmercifully. When she takes the thing, she barely manages to stutter out, "W-what..?" It is a weak cover at best.

"I use this camera to take pictures of what I need to remember to paint. Yes, for the list. I can remember the event by seeing the image. Touching the camera... nevermind. Scroll right," he explains. She does as he says. Image after image of Sylar's body, covered in her face. It starts with simply the forearm, and eventually her face is laughing and crying across Sylar's firm chest and torso, back, and shoulders. "I don't understand," she says, handing him back the camera. "What does this have to do with your paintings of your victims' lives? Why are they all here?" She says, looking around in bafflement.

"This isn't all of them," he says, putting the camera back in his pocket. "The rest have gone to exhibits. Peter did that," he adds thoughtfully. "That is exactly it. I am nowhere near the end, and I can't go on. I... I can't figure it out." The last is nearly a whisper. Claire measures her words, reminding herself that she needs to be downstairs in fifteen and that this is for Peter... and her grandmother; because the monster is family or something subjective like that-except he is not really, and the burning anger will not dissipate. She says, "I know it must be difficult for you, Sylar, to choose the most poignant events of lives that were completely meaningless to you for art, but I am sure that you will find a way around this little bump in the road. Now, if you will excuse me, I have an interview and a book signing this afternoon."

She means to turn on her heel and high tail it out of there as soon as it has come out of her mouth, but he raises his eyes to hers and they captivate the moment entirely. "I asked you to call me Gabriel, Claire, please," he says smoothly. "I have to go," she says. She means it. She means run. Her heart is pounding and, no matter how many pictures of Peter and he dressed in white and barefoot go up on the mantle, he is the monster. **He is the monster**. "I can't figure it out," he says it with fervor this time, "and you are going to tell me what I need, Claire, by telling me what you need."

Quick as a flash it has crossed her mind: _the Hollywood Hills sign_. West's amazing catch. _Someone please rescue me... _she didn't think she meant it. "Oh, Claire," he sighs. "They tried so hard to kill me and I couldn't save myself. They tried so hard to save you and you couldn't kill yourself... ha ha. _Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha_..." His laughter is light and, though it sounds merry, it chills her to the bone again and she does turn this time to run. He reaches out and wraps his fingers around her slim wrist. A mere chance-he had not expected he would catch her-and the sensation delights him. She is disgusted though, and snatches her hand away without looking back.

"Can you imagine?" she says to Tracy as they primp in the back of their limo. "What am I going to do for that creature? So many need someone really trying to get the message out that we are not a different species and we want to live as regular people, and all they can think about is that beast!" She doesn't mean to sound so petulant but Tracy is understanding. "Claire, if he wasn't the most powerful being on the planet who suddenly found Jesus or his grocery list, I am sure that he would be locked up with the other serial killers. As it stands, he is your uncle's and grandmother's philanthropy project of the year, and you and I need to be worried about the PR we are going to be getting for the next three weeks with the new book promo. Now switch into the Lorenzi boots; they go much better with that teal dress," Tracy says as she cocks one eyebrow for touch up.

It chews on her during work. Peter set her up. She told him and Angela to just stop it. Sylar can burn in hell-_will_ burn in hell-and that was all. No conversation needed. She understands that they believe in his repentence and seeking of absolution, but he has taken so much from her... It is not hate, but she simply cannot bear him. She cannot understand how Peter lives with him, knowing what he has done and can do...on a whim. She tells Tracy she is going to Angela's for the night, but instead she instructs the driver to take her to Peter's.

Her feet should be sore, and she knows her hair has fallen flat. She consoles herself with a promise of emotional rest right after she has this conversation with Peter. He answers the door still in his uniform. "Just get home?" she asks cheerily. "Yeah, just walked through the door," he answers as he closes it behind her. She cuts right to the chase, "Look, Peter, I know you think I can help him, but I can't. Okay? I just can't, and you can't do that to me anymore. Please, Peter, don't make me... be near him." Peter nods, lips tight while she talks. His arms are crossed over his chest. "Where is he, anyway?" she asks once her nerves have metered out. "You know Gabe," Peter says, "he's covering my double shift on call tonight. Come here."

They step five feet to the left, and she looks down. She looks up and around. On one side of the apartment, there is a wall of Nathans. Nathan in his pilot's suit, Nathan in front of crowds, Nathan at home, Nathan with family. If Claire were to guess, she would say there were perhaps fifty paintings. The other wall is a collection of paintings of... herself. Her face in reflection, her silhouette, cheerleading, with West, with Mr. Muggles, with her mother, her toes bright pink as she paints them... Then she sees it.

She is laying on her bed with a queen sized pillow crushed to her chest and stomach. Exaggerated cartoon tears squeeze from her eyes, and at the edges of her hairline there is the indication of the cut, a small amount of blood. Her peach legs are a perfect figure extending from the hem of her white sweater. The same day that there was no Peter to save her. Peter would not know this image, but she knows it. The heat that came to her body, the madness that had already been climbing on top of her that cemented one cumulative isolated expression. In the painting one hand is clearly visible wrenching at the pillow, the other much lower beneath, and the word clenched between her teeth at her most tender moment, "..._Sylar_."

Her face is flush, and he betrays himself when she turns to him. Lips parted, cheeks red, eyes a-glisten. "You bastard," she snarls. His face shifts instantly, Sylar's height blossoming from seeming nothingness. "How could you _lie_ to me?" she yells. The fire in it sets his blood alight as he hears the echo across Noah and others in her mind. "I couldn't figure it out. I have painted image after image. Most of our lives are dull, repetitive moments able to be explained again and again. In many of the places I have been I'm not the first killer, but I didn't truly learn that until I went back to see their lives... What is this?" he finishes. The question is open, pleading for understanding.

"I hate you," she shivers out through clenched teeth. He will not remit. His brown eyes watch her with scintillating attention. The heat comes back to her regardless of her intentions, and she can hear his breath hitching above her as the pain of the knife in his chest interrupts his prattling whilst he works, "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" The coffee table is an icy slab beneath her-the only sensation before it all becomes non. She knows what it is. No man has ever been this intimately close to her before, except family. His scent all around her. The uncommon things he says so calmly. Madness. The Mad Hatter will be having your brains for tea. Wicked pleasantries.

When he was Peter she had moved within his personal space without regard, and his change has backed her into a wall, but now they are close again. It is far too close for any comfort, and she feels tears begin to swell knowing that she has let him near again, making her consistently the victim. Meredith taught her to always keep the predator a step further away than an arm's length, especially if he insists he is a house pet. For an instant, she fears he has locked her in place. It seems nothing will move except her erratically thrumming heart. Then his scent tickles her sinuses.

It quite literally starts as a tickle in the back of her nose, and she thinks for just a second that she is going to sneeze but, as the sensation spreads, it becomes a warmth. As the warmth spreads, she can suddenly sense a great tension in her lower back and the firm press of her bra cupping her breasts. Her tail bone warms. The memory comes back like the hot hell it was on a summers' night. The thought that crossed her mind when she whispered his name hangs heavy in the six inches between them.

Then the sight of his dark clad shoulders as he steps toward the door and out of her life... "You're special, Claire, and I couldn't kill you even if I wanted to... You can never die, and now, I guess, neither can I," and with that he is gone. Those broad, dark shoulders and the breeze and light that has come through the door then silence: the end of an event. On that breeze, however, the first taste of something else. It does not hold the scent that cups her face where his hands have been. No, this brings an immense heat upon her immediately, as though Sprague has set her alight again.

She runs up the stairs and slams her bedroom door, sliding down against it. She feels so white-hot angry, and this heat will not leave her be. She slides out of her jeans and throws herself on the bed, snatching her pillow up. Of course he came today when she was home alone with her hair undone and practically a mess. God, what did it matter? _Murdering freak!_ Those thin rail boys, though. Oh, those boys with their weak hearts and their soft minds. No expanse on any of them, and she could see him above her and bare. His shoulders flexing as he moves in time with her. The flesh of his hips brushing her inner thighs as he leans in for her mouth, dark brows drawn in concentration and eyes flashing. "_...Sylar,_" she sighs as tears flood. She screams into the pillow.

"_I hate you!_" she snarls again even though it is the last thing she has said to him. She just cannot seem to say it enough. He watches her for a long minute. Both of their faces burn red. Finally, she turns and flees again. Just like earlier today, and last month, and six months ago. No, the time is not making it any easier for Claire Bennet to be close to him. The door slams behind her. This is making it worse.

"Did she talk to you this time at least?" Peter asks when he finally makes it home hours later. "Yes," Sylar answers. The pause is notably long, and Peter slows stripping down his bag, coat, and gear. "How did it go?" He prompts. Sylar's head tilts to the right. Peter knows he is listening to his thoughts and not really considering the question. He keeps his mind blank, unwilling to bend in any direction. "She wants me..." Sylar pauses again, "as much as she hates me." Peter scoffs a near laugh, "that is quite the quandary."

"What am I going to do, Pete?" he calls across the apartment. Peter pads back through the bedroom from the bathroom on bare feet and walks straight to the kitchen. He has undressed to just his work slacks and commences making himself a sandwich. Gabriel follows him to the kitchen doorway. "How do I get around this?" He presses. "Well, you tortured and terrified her, murdered her mother and her father-my brother. There is no way around that. Natural grieving processes are complex." Sylar winces when he says "my brother." It amazes him no end Peter's capacity for forgiveness and mercy, but he still feels pain under the sincere words.

He can't resist the urge to break the ice slithering over the conversation, "but that was ages ago," he complains with a lop-sided grin. "Women remember that sort of thing," Peter answers with a laugh. The tension of his encounter with Claire and stress of apparent deficiency culminates into a pressure on his chest. "I love you, Pete," he says. Peter smiles, his lips curling in. "I love you too, Gabe." He gives Gabriel a good solid pat on the shoulder as he walks past shoveling sandwich into his mouth. Gabriel marvels at his confidence. He marvels more that there is no tingle from his ability to detect lies.

"I need something. Peter! I need something to hold on to...to make it easier," the man's desperation is riveting. If he and Gabriel had not been going on a good decade of truth and justice together he might have reconsidered. He might have worried that his companion who had somehow made himself a brother was becoming the lesser man again. The idea that this man could be his brother-prove himself irrefutably-after all they had been through together demonstrated to Peter something he had taken on as a serious life lesson. The insurmountable odds grew every day. Just like his ability to climb the mountain.

He had to admit that the number of successful endeavors at the hospital had drastically increased since he had become able to depend on someone elses assistance. Gabriel would join him simply for his presence before becoming swept into the reparation they were capable of in a single day. People were bound to start noticing soon if they weren't more careful, but they were drunk with the power of it. It gave them camraderie. It was almost starting to feel like they were making a dent. "_Say it with me, Pete. 'You can't fix the world, but you can make a dent.'_" Nathan used to say to him.

He turns to Gabriel, his friend and brother, "**never. Without. Her. Permission.**" They study one another. Peter's jaw is set firmly to his right as he tries to impart the pertinence with his eyes. The once offender wants to feel righteously indignant. _How dare you insinuate_? He knows his own horrified face in the fun house. Remembers hers. "Okay. Alright. Nice one," he vacillates and a great gust of tension leaves the room. Sylar considers her slender wrist strong as iron wrapped in silk clasped in his hand. Peter is right.

In the early morning hours when the sun is just peeking over the horizon Peter stirs in his sleep. Gabriel has lain awake on the couch all night, and hears accelerated breathing in the next room. "Nathan...Nathan. _No!_" Peter bolts upright. "Go back to sleep, Pete. It's just a bad dream. I'm right here," he says in Nathan's voice. It makes his brow furrow and his stomach tense to do so, but he hears Peter relax back into his bed. It is worth it and he probably won't remember it in the morning anyway. He usually doesn't.

Four days later at the opening night gala Claire is staring thoughtfully at the installation in the foyer pondering how 9 PM used to be her bed time and now is her most active social hour despite very little change in her features. She would never look a day older. She would be this petite until... Music chimes quietly in the background. Cocktail dresses and fine suits mingle around her. She wraps her arms tightly around herself and kisses the champagne flute in a sip.

Emblazoned boldly on a nine by two foot cavas above nine three by three individual images in curliqued script his words read: "**The more laws and orders written, the more thieves there are.**" She feels the urge to snort and roll her eyes. The pictures are stunning despite her incredulity. The first image is her sitting at a stone lunch table in the quad of her Odessa high school. Her and Jackie are laughing. Sitting next to her on the stone bench there is a stack of plastic wrapped cheerleading uniforms. Long before him. Long before she knew.

The second image is a grizzled old man, oxygen tube snaking around his ears pronged in the center of his face. It is the man who killed her father's first wife. He is ancient and withered, but it is definitely him. The third image is a red-headed waitress with the huge eyes of a Burmese cat. She is trying to study them in order, but as she moves to the fourth her eyes are drawn to the center. Sylar wearing Gabriel's face. He has removed it like a mask, and inches behind Gabriel's thick glasses and unassuming soft features the Devil smirks. She hadn't realized before that he had adjusted the shape of his face. It had never occurred to her, but a plastic surgeon certainly couldn't have done it for him-or for her.

"Something else, isn't it?" Peter says from next to her. She jumps and her flute nearly slips. "Peter! How do I know it's you?" She is immediately suspicious after her trip to their apartment. Peter is smiling at her, "when I saved you in Odessa I asked if I had saved the world." She looks up at the painting of her and Jackie, "he has so many tricks there is no way for me to really know anymore, is there?" Peter gestures behind her and she turns to her right. A shadow moves amongst the other patrons.

"You don't go to parties dressed as each other, do you?" She asks jokingly. Peter laughs, "no, not yet anyway." She looks up at the paintings chosen to introduce the exhibit. These are supposed to be the artist's representative images. "It is something," she mutters under her breath. To Peter she says, "he told me he works at the hospital sometimes as you." Peter nods and his eyes are scanning the room, "that's true," he says. "Sometimes we work together. Excuse me for a moment," and he steps around her. She sees Angela across the atrium in his direct line.

"Her name is Charlie," hot silk nails pin her to the floor. "Who?" She tries not to sound terrified. "The red head," he says. He is standing a polite foot and a half away, his eyes raised to the paintings. He wants to tell her that he didn't kill Charlie he saved her, but settles for saying nothing. Claire swallows. Many of the people here have ties and connections. This event is obviously intricately tied into her grandmother's web of control and power. Keep it cool and even. Only a handful of individuals here should even know who Sylar is despite his face being up on the wall. It isn't labelled artist's self-portrait. Just another model.

"I don't know most of these faces," she says, "but I know the one in the top center." Sylar's left brow raises, "really? Fascinating. Who is he to you?" She takes a deep breath and kisses her flute carefully again-like they practiced. She no longer cares what she looks like in these tall couture shoes and over-priced scrap of fabric that is her little black dress. "He murdered my father's first wife," she says over the scent of her glass. "Noah's," she breathes. "He is my father," Sylar says evenly.

"The bottom center is my mother. Claire, would you like to walk through this hall of mirrors with me?" His tone remains even (always), but she still catches that he is physically less at ease. She hasn't thought of the carnival in some time, but his implication is still quite clear. This is the unremarkable entry to the horror within. Claire resists the urge to roll her eyes again. She just can't understand why she feels so tired as of late. "No, I think I'll pass," she tells him. "It's because you're hungry," he completely bypasses her rejection of him and instead answers her ponderings. "You don't...go to the bathroom anymore. Do you?" His dark eyes are watching her. "You're starving," he says with conviction before stepping away.

It was true that she hadn't used the toilet in nearly a month, but she had not said anything to anyone about it. He had to know because it was happening to him too. Her body had slimmed considerably. Dropping from a shapely six down to a zero. She was desperately in need of nutrients, but had been so distracted with the need to speak and speak; she was trying to wash away the feeling of needing nothing by indulging it. She found herself suddenly quite hungry, but she turned and walked into the gallery. Two more hours of work then she was going to the midnight buffet with Tracy.

She had glanced briefly at the picture of Sylar's mother. Wondering at such a simple woman in an indoor snow storm surrounded by glass globes. How did he do it? What did it mean? Claire lost the train of thought as she moved through the other paintings. Noah was in enough of them to call it a number, perhaps almost many. Many more of the paintings were not scenes of murder and dismay, but rather touching experiences-personal, private moments. An upturned face from a comfortable couch, offering servings of dinner, stepping through the front door-the gestures that would make a life sweet with the bitter.

Angela catches her when she has nearly made it to the door after a few hours of traipsing, smiling, and polite greeting. Her and Tracy perfectly perpetuate the classic hemisphere single, cross, full circle together social maneauver. She is proud and Tracy has stepped away simply to use the restroom when her grandmother startles her out of reverie. They are standing in front of a three series near the entrance/exit. Elle and Gabriel through a screen with Noah's horn rimmed glasses silhouetted in the foreground in front of a television monitor. Elle's white blonde tendrils of hair flung across the sand, the lithe length of Sylar's shadow planted firmly between her thighs. Claire blushes. Elle's bust, hair still free flowing against the sand, her head slashed open.

"Tragic like Romeo and Juliet," Angela says. "Sort of," Claire answers. "It is always a great effort to bear a great burden, but that is why there are rewards," her grandmother offers cryptically. "What do you mean?" She wants to be angry knowing manipulation is in the air, but she also knows the door is mere steps away and Tracy will be right back to rescue her. "I know you feel overwhelmed with your responsibilities, Claire. You make me proud. Your commitment to cleaning up this mess is admirable, and we couldn't have salvaged this situation without that fall," Angela reaches out and cups Claire's elbows, a smile turning up the corners of her aged mouth.

The shadow that had drifted round and round all evening-the only scotch glass she had noticed-was leaning into the woman eight feet away. She looked to be Angela's age. Her silver hair is cut short around her ears and her cocktail dress glitters in the under shade of the lighting. His lips are perhaps an inch from her ear and Claire's breath hitches. She reads the words from his full mouth-only knowing because she is expecting them in some way, "_I'm sorry for your loss._" She hadn't really noticed how long the woman had been standing in front of the series next to her. It was certainly nearly as long as she had been standing here.

She is so tired she isn't sure she understands what is being said to her, but fortunately Tracy strides up-tall and proud-at just the right time. "Good evening, Ms Petrelli," she smiles with straight white teeth. "Tracy! Don't you look lovely? You're doing an amazing job Ms Strauss as always," she is referring to Claire's transformation from lost lamb to media puppet. "Thank you very much. It is a great honor to continue to assist your family in affecting moral and social genuflection," Tracy answers. Her smile never falters, but Claire knows the ice underneath. "Four-thirty dress rehearsal, Claire?" Tracy says turning to her. "Good night," she says to her grandmother. Neither of them look back at Angela even though they know she is watching as they leave.

She is thinking of the tears that slid down that woman's face. The more she thinks about it the longer the moment seems. The older woman in her black sequined dress had been standing there for a long, long time with her glass of red wine. Upon consideration she had not even seen which direction Sylar had snuck up from, but it was obvious that he had surprised her by both invading her space and his very personal words. "I'm starving," she says to Tracy when they step out into the warm night air.

It is nearly four months before she is in New York again. Three months and twenty-three days later roughly thirty-seven hundred calories a day has brought her back up to a curious size four. She has noticed the inequality, and she still has not used the toilet. She is exhaustedly coifed in an evening gown, up-done hair, and exagerrated make up. Her picture was taken a million times this evening and she's quite flustered and dizzy from it all, but she can't wait until tomorrow to see Peter. Beside that, Tracy said the schedule was tight. Now or never sounded good.

Claire is surprised to hear the television. The last time she was here she isn't even sure she saw one. Peter answers the door in dark sweat pants and tee, his eyes are swollen and pink. Her voice cuts through the silence from the screen, "individuals who manifest these abilities are becoming less unusual. A commitment from politicians, communities, and families is needed to foster understanding and support for every human being that suffers alone. I urge you, if you have a support network then please come forward and offer support to those who have none." Peter closes the door behind her. She gathers her skirt, turning to the television.

"The serial killer Sylar," the interviewer prompts. Claire's face on the television barely visibly tightens, bearing gracefully this probing in her Chanel beige suit once more. The prime time journalist continues, "many are arguing that his is a case that justifies Nathan Petrelli-your father's-illegal pursuit and registration of specially developed individuals. It is even postulated that you have been one of his victims. How do you answer these assertions?" She sees herself take a huge breath and her eyes wander left to right. Angela would disapprove.

"I had only very recently been introduced to my biological father and therefore know nothing of his intentions before his untimely and tragic death. On the matter of the psychopath Sylar, I will say this:" She turns to the camera and her expression hardens. "Sylar is a murderer. Human beings do not judge each other based on the behaviors of Charles Manson and Jeffrey Dahmer, and likewise we ask that people who have developed abilities not be judged by one psychotic bad apple," she feels she has nailed this. Take that Angela. She turns to Peter to find him scowling.

"Merry Christmas!'' She exhales. Hoping to cover the pregnant pause between them. Her bare shoulders are freezing, and her extended lashes and hair are covered in faux glitter snow. Her green taffeta dress and black Alexander McQueen claw heels make her a stark contrast to Peter's dishevelled fatigue. "You believe those things you say?" Peter says accusingly. Her green eyes flash to the television. "Your mother-" she starts. "No, you can't blame this on her. How could you say that? You know that he-" she interrupts him interrupting her, "I don't know anything about him!"

She loves Peter, but feels immense right now. Towering over him in the monstrosities she has managed to accustom herself to she bares her teeth at him. "I can't forget, Peter. I can't forget what he did. What he did to me," she snarls. He scoffs and a hand digs into his dark locks, "Neither can he." Claire feels somewhat deflated and it shows. Peter watches her through swollen eyes. "He chose the nightmare," he says flatly. She doesn't know what to say so she stares back at him waiting for elaboration.

He has gone back to watching the television, rubbing at his forearms nervously. They have moved on from her interview and five men are discussing taxation on special abilities that produce commodities loudly over one another. "He finished his paintings...or he got as close as he said he could then he just... Gave up," Peter continues to stare at the television but he isn't seeing it, not really.

"Bullshit," she says before she can stop herself, "no way." Peter's stare is long and hard. "Why would he do something like that, Peter? Where is he?" For a split second Claire's frustration reaches an immense pinnacle as she realizes the shrill tone she has reached. There is a contradiction occurring here and she is at a loss to explain it. Peter gestures towards the partitioned bedroom. Claire stalks across the apartment, arms full of glittering green taffeta exposing black stockings beneath.

Sylar is propped in Peter's bed, blankets pulled up neatly just below his shoulders. She is frozen in place. As always his affect on her is instantaneous. She drops her skirt. Claire finds her voice, "how long has he been this way?" Peter is at her side studying his long time friend, "ten days and eighteen hours." She nods and glitter falls around her as she settles on the bed next to him. "How many paintings did he finish?" Claire asks. Peter's voice cracks when he answers, "over six thousand. He wanted the world to see some of what had been missed, he said."

Claire feels anger rising up in her and suddenly her dress is tight, her shoes are uncomfortable, and all of this is just plain ridiculous. "You are acting like he is dead!" She hisses at him. Already on edge Peter snaps, "every hour is one year where he is, Claire!" Pursing her lips, she thinks on the math class she dipped out on wistfully-that would be ten times twenty-four plus eighteen...two hundred and fifty-eight years roughly. She gasps and her eyes fly to his lax face. _Sylar..._

Even as soft as his features appear in sleep he is still the devil. It is clear that the gullable face of Gabriel is not there for the world any more. She thinks of his self-portrait. She can't leave him like this. Her heart leaps into her throat as she plunges down the rabbit hole, "_you_ did this!" She turns accusingly on Peter, "he couldn't have done it on his own. Let me in, Peter. You asked me to help him." Unsure of how much she really means, Claire levels her best stone-cold stare toward her uncle.

"_No. Absolutely not,_" but she can already see him wavering. This is a tenuous subject for Peter. With Nathan's loss, Arthur's loss after his return, and consistent betrayal on Angela's part Peter was beginning to be quite the pushover for Claire and Gabriel. Either one of them could get whatever they wanted as tightly as he was wrapped around their little fingers. Claire looks up at him with black spider lashes crusted in glitter and huge begging emerald eyes darkened by her dress. He looks to Gabriel's prone form, features barely sunk in nearly two weeks with no nourishment whatsoever.

"You said yourself that this is something that I can make right," she presses. "Call Tracy-," she begins but Peter's fingertips barely trail across her temple. She sees it as a slash of light and the world whorls for a moment. Claire slumps forward slowly. He stands chewing his lips, knuckles pressed firmly against his mouth in consideration. He hadn't meant to be abrupt-just wanting to get it out of the way before any deep thought disuaded him. He immediately regrets it, but somehow doubts that there is anything to be done from this side for either of his dear friends.

Peter presses Claire's golden tanned shoulder back so that she is resting against Gabriel's side. He pulls off her monstrous shoes and her pretty little toes fade quickly from bright red to perfect pink in her stockings, the flesh expanding to fill in the hours-long dents before his eyes. Going to fetch a blanket for Claire he feels as though he has cordoned off the serpent and the great beast to abandon them locked in eternal struggle. It discomfits him.

The air is cold and fresh, a morning slant of sun sneaks through the windows. Golden tresses curled, white sweater, jeans, bare feet. Peter knew exactly where to find him. The shop is chilly in the morning air. That must be why he is wearing such a thick sweater. His back is to her, and he is hunched over his work-desk lamp glaring in the cool gray morning. His voice is low and he says as though they are in the middle of a conversation, "so keep dreaming, Claire. Keep dreaming and all of your dreams will come true."

"Even the scary ones?" She whispers. As though a shadow has passed over the early morning sun the room darkens. The whole world darkens. The desk lamp is now a lone beacon. "Yes," Sylar answers thickly. The watch and screwdriver clink together when he sets them down-the tiniest of bells in this silent place-and he places his glasses with their speciality magnifiers down next to them. "Why are you here?" His miserable anger sets her off. "This is pathetic," Claire spits. Her brow furrows. That isn't why she came.

"As I recall, your own exploits currently aren't nearly what was hoped for either, _Barbie_," his tone is always level yet deadly. Using Doyle's moniker for her adds a delightful extra sting. "I'm sorry," she gasps as tears swell. "I forgot why I came," Claire hopes her tone is humble. She doesn't mean to be so weepy, but the room is cold and dark. Her feet are bare on a freezing floor and she is alone with this strange man. This strange man that did very bad things to her. "Why did you come then?" He asks curtly. "I was so hungry..." the blonde mumbles. His back is to her still, palms down on the desk, so she does not see his smirk.

"Oh, Eris, how many golden apples do you have up your sleeve with which to tempt me? Every word that comes out of your mouth endlessly fascinating in its embodiment of inviolable vanities that used to mean nothing. 'If you meet the buddha on your path, _kill him_,'" he breathes the words out steadily, but they are intimate-dangerous. She trembles in the cold. "Your metabolism has rightly adjusted to every organ in your body being capable of functioning to its full potential. Without consuming somewhere around six to eight times the normal amount of food you may never have to use the restroom again. Professor Hotema postulated that human organs-" he continues to babble, but she has closed him out.

His need to communicate is deep-seated. It is unnerving to see him switch from salted psychotic to eagerly educating sycophant. She breathes a sigh of relief as some of the light returns. The room warms slowly. He puts the glasses back on and begins tinkering once more. Sylar still continues to talk however. Rallying off reference and example regarding absorption of nutrients into human tissues he toils and tabulates through several timepieces. He falls silent eventually and she settles into a chair in the corner.

Time passes. She pulls her feet into the seat beneath her. She returns them to the floor. Claire finds it impossible to determine how long and catches herself staring at the throb in her wrist. The steady thump and thump of her heart-continual and eternal. Shaking herself out of it she focuses instead on the light slanting through the shop windows. Her life unspools slowly for her. She follows herself one step at a time to this place. Feeling more self-assured now that she has found much that was missing Claire decides to try again.

"Sylar," she says into the empty room. It is night out. It was never not morning though, was it? Sylar steps through the door from the back of the shop. He has shed his thick sweater for a simple long sleeved shirt. "So you are really here," he states. He stalks toward her reversing mid stride and seating himself in one long graceful gesture. He folds his hands exagerratedly and a wide smile spreads across his face. The desk lamp is the only light in the world and between them there is only a three foot expanse of beige floral carpet and her bare feet, chilly at the edges. "What can I do for you?" He purrs.

Claire draws in a deep breath feeling her eyes rolling already in resignation. She opens her mouth and stops. His grin is far too wide. His eyes too dark. Where are the soft bedroom eyes that have been leering at her gently for a dozen or so meetings now? He is watching her perfect little white teeth, plush coral lips, wide blonde curls, but his eyes are not benevolently longing. No, this situation has escalated. She is alone with the beast. Alone on his turf. She closes her mouth slowly, pursing her lips with slight dramaticism, and batting her lightly mascaraed lashes.

"Is this what you are spending eternity doing?" She quips dangerously. She locks her green eyes to his. Meredith said you always had to hypnotize the snake. Walk the narrow straight between his madness and his passion; never let him push you over the line and never let him back you to the wall. She would know with Doyle following her around for all those years espousing his 'passion'... Claire stretches one foot languidly across toward him, bowing her legs and slouching down in her seat. Sylar's eyes follow her petite digits before returning to hers, one eyebrow lifting as the hem of her sweater rides up above the waist of her jeans exposing the slightest smidgen of belly flesh.

"You are here in this one tiny place tinkering away with accessories that no one in the modern age is missing. This is pathetic. You could go anywhere, do anything. All you are is disappointed," she mutters with just the slightest of scoffs. His cheshire smile never wavers. She delicately drags her thumb nail across her lower lip-slow, thoughtful and showing those perfect little white fangs again. Sylar squares his shoulders and leans back slowly watching her through hooded eyes. "It _is_ exhausting living up to expectations, don't you think?" He drawls. The hand that had been trailing idly across the arm of the chair ghosts across her abdomen and his eyes break hers once again to follow the motion hungrily.

Despite the butterflies that had been building in her lower stomach she is suddenly terrified when his eyes narrow and he snarls, "What are you doing here, Claire?" The night is oppressive around them. She had felt some anonymity in the low lighting but foolishness washes over her soundly and she is grateful for it hiding her blush at least. "Peter is worried about you," she snaps to attempt to change the subject. "Don't change the subject," his voice cracks. It is the barest hint at a rise in tone, but perceptible nonetheless. "Why are you doing this to me?" He says emphatically. _Look at him squirm..._ Indeed, they are all alone. He is the last man on earth. With only the two of them to contend with she takes the plunge-reservations be damned.

She catches the hem of her sweater and lifts it over her head, catching her bra on the way, and drops her clothing to the floor. She tosses her hair and reclines in the chair, levelling flint bright emerald eyes at him. Truth or dare time. Claire slides her hands across her stomach, over her breasts and up through her hair, back arched and smirking. It was the most languid gesture Sylar had ever seen and Claire's perked nipples send a twinge to his loins. Her cheeks are burning. "Do it," she sighs huskily, "_fuck me, Sylar._" In an instant his lithe shadow is leaning over her, one knee planted firmly against the seat of the chair between her thighs. Her breath hitches and she closes her eyes involuntarily-his swiftness terrifying. There is a hairs breadth between them.

His nostrils flare as he lingers near her hair. "Why do you _smell_ like this?" The timber in his voice is a vibratory burr. It brings back the butterflies. "Even in my dreams," he huffs. He studies her face from so very close. Flushed and trembling she is golden, round, and beautiful. _Girl, tell me your name, is it Sweet..?_ He wishes silently, white-knuckle gripping the arms of her seat. "Show me your teeth," he growls into the shell of her ear. She hisses, baring tiny fangs between luscious pout and her eyes snap open finally. Cold dead ashes even though her heart is on fire. _No, my boy, it's dagger to your heart._ His right brow creases only slightly.

Claire's heart leaps into her throat as thick white canvas straps spring inexplicably from the seat he has so recently vacated and return him there carefully, wrapped shoulder to ankle. Her perfect pout hangs agape. The air is chilly on her bare chest. Sylar's dark eyes are watching her intently. "What the hell?" She spits. "You're too young," he says. His even tone has returned. The straps tighten and double up, more leaping from beneath him. She snatches up her clothes and dresses herself quickly, back to him. When she turns around he is staring vacantly past her shoulder. She waits. He ignores her.

_God, how stupid am I?_ She feels tears threatening to overflow again. Claire's small hands with their french manicured nails ball into tight little fists. A ragged breath catches in her chest. She turns and runs again. It does not matter to her that this is _his_ mind. Where is she going to go? Everywhere here is no where. How can this place even be real? She pushes through doors and runs up stairs. Anywhere that he isn't is good enough. The first apartment she tries is unlocked and she is grateful for the empty bed with it's cool sheets to soothe her burning tear-streaked face. The blonde cries herself to sleep, face buried deep in a scentless pillow.

Gabriel Gray's watch shop is no longer a reality-long ago closed and assumed abandoned. Sylar sits in the watch shop of his dreams strapped to his desk chair. He smirks to himself at the absurdity. All of these years and she could reduce him to whatever she wanted in an instant still. He considers his attentions carefully-ever wary of the intents and purposes of others. It is madness that no matter how long he meditates or imagines...she just brings out the beast in him. The ghost within his shell slips from the desk chair and drifts through the streets following the scent of a dream to the place where the young girl's mind lingers in an illusion of rest.

Claire isn't sure whether she really believes the early morning light in the windows. The darkness comes and goes with its own whimsy in this place, and she dare not feel comfortable with a rational concept of time. It would seem that she slept through the night and it is now the next day. Claire finds her way back to his shop. The lights glint through the windows; crystals and timefaces reflect the store ambiance. Through Gray & Sons hours and information she sees him still strapped in his seat. He does not move when the bell above the door tinkles.

She stops where the store shelving ends and his work space begins to watch him. "How long do you intend to stay like this?" She asks. Sylar's bedroom eyes flicker from one corner of the ceiling to a shelf and back. "As long as necessary," he replies. Her manicured nails are idly fingering one corner of a wooden display case, but she is staring him down hard. Claire takes a deep breath, "how long is 'necessary?'" His brown eyes slide closed and for a long moment she isn't sure that he is going to answer. She is right at the border of deciding that he has gone back to ignoring her when he finally speaks. "Until I no longer have the desire for comfort," and his whisper brings her chills.

_The desire for comfort?_ The petite blonde feels pressure burgeoning upward. Some deep-seated rage has come for a visit and would very much like to get out and walk around-perhaps have some lunch. Claire grits her teeth. She wants to say something, anything. There should be something that can be said that will change everything. Nothing comes. No words exist within her to quell his remorse or burst this didactic segregation. She is angry at him for everything he did, but more so she is angry with him because they can't move around it. There is no escape for either of them from the tangled web that brought their star-crossed lives together.

She runs because it is the only response she knows to him. It is the only thing that keeps her going because it is going. Claire's legs pump acid, regenerate, and keep pounding out distance. Her bare feet smack the pavement and the sound of it echoes off the buildings and down the alleys. She runs until there are trees. She runs until the urban turns into the suburban and then she keeps running. The edge of New York. Her south-eastern direction has brought her to a curve in the road. She curls around herself beneath the green trees and stares out at the flat, deadly still ocean. No wind whipping or waves crashing-only her sobs here.

_I didn't even ask Peter how to get out of here_, she thinks. _There was a wall. They found a wall and it was the way out._ There is no wall. The gray morning light has warmed considerably and the first yellow is beginning to peak across the vast expanse of mirror. The only sound is her own breathing. It occurs to her that he may very well be the only way out of here. No, she will not be going to him of her own accord. Not after how it worked out the first time. Even alone on this empty road she tingles in humiliation all over again. _There has to be another way, _she tells herself. _Come on, feet._

It only takes a few days for her to figure out that her feet never experience wear and her thin mascara is always fresh. She walks to places she knows first-her home town in Odessa, her home in Costa Verde. She wants to be further from him. Claire chances everything and tries the marble smooth water. All of the places in North America were murder homes. Every house filled with blood stains; apartments splayed with gore. She never found any bodies though. The rest of the world waits, and unable to genuinely count the time or conceive of an end to this world she sets out to find an exit. It could be anywhere. It could be nowhere. Surely the whole planet can't be concealing his nightmares...

She swims until she feels she has been swimming for far longer than she ever walked in this world. When the idea alone exhausts her she turns to float on her back, staring out into the bright stars and huge moon. Floating seemingly endlessly she feels herself slipping. The jet black night against the dead ocean is a perfect mirror. Blackness surrounds her. This whole world is him, and he is staunch and strange. There are no animals here and no winds. Wandering far and wide Claire has found that his attention to detail is focused on architecture and grisly murder scenes. All of the beautiful greenery, the vast blue sky, is out of focus-unimportant.

Claire knows that she is trapped in a dream, but the overwhelming terror of her weightlessness in the inky chasm is clawing up her throat. Her mouth opens wide in an agonized scream. Terror and isolation grip her whole-heartedly and her sanity slides away. It is the first sound she has made in months. It feels as though the entire universe is titillated with her little outburst. A gentle wave rises far in the distance growing huge as it approaches. Her mind snaps back into place. A new terror has overwrought the previous sensation and reduced it to a mere insinuation. She fears this development even more than the previously experienced tabula rasa. The tsunami scoops her gently and deposits her on dull gray sand.

Her blonde hair is twisted into a single lock over her shoulder, and she lays still for a very long time. Claire has tried to count the days, she really has. It is hard though; it is always morning, mid-morning, night or raining. The wet sand is cold. Most things are here. Sometimes the sun is warm, but mostly everywhere and everything is cold-ice cold. That wave could not have come from no where. All places are him. The wave came from him. This thought strikes like lightning and she is up and moving again. Far and wide, one foot in front of the other.

It is the seventeenth year when she discovers that churches and chapels are clean within. Walking through northern Europe stained glass catches her attention. Fine details and sordid stories are meaningful in religion just like in cheerleading and she wants to know just how sick he is. The building is spotless however and the constuct is gorgeous. This is where his attention to detail is centered. Sanctuaries that offer just that. Tears stream from her green eyes and she thinks _no more sleeping out in the rain._ Not accounting for what she has become accustomed to, it is with some surprise that in less than a month she is sleeping outside again. The air is fresher, and even though she knows she is trapped it is harder to believe staring up at the sky.

It is in central Asia that she discovers the cave. It is the first time she has genuinely _felt_ his presence in decades. Knowing that all places are himself does not change the lengths to which she has gone to directly avoid his conscience-the part of him with a face and words. There is something different about this place. She sits for a long time outside the cave's mouth. The yawning gape whispers and breathes. It calls to her. When the go-round in the sky trips itself up again she fears that it really is him. The night drizzle is becoming the mid-morning gray and the whispers almost sound like his voice. Though she cannot distinguish the words, one thing is clear: whatever is in the cave would love to love her as much as it would love to kill her. Claire doesn't run. She walks away.

The cave brings to the surface some resolve and she decides that it must be time. It has been nearly a century. Claire heads straight north from the Bay of Bengal. No more churches and temples and definitely no crossing the ocean. With a firmer grasp of how long these things take, she expects to reach New York in a few years-intending to head north west and cross through the shorter straights from country to country instead of crossing the wide water.

She finds a small valley with a starlit lake just south of Russia. The mountains don't seem nearly as huge after having flown, swam, and walked around the world. The small blonde marvels that even in this bottled world everything is beautiful. His focus applied or not; it is obvious that this entire world is constructed from his previous knowledge and though his previous knowledge is vast his areas of interest are not hers. "It's so beautiful here," Claire says aloud. The sound is soft. She is almost surprised that she is not shocked at the sound of her own voice. That scream in the ocean all those years ago is the last sound she can recall herself making. She sighs, "too bad it isn't warmer."

Though the dawn does come it is often murky, raining usually. This morning is different however. Just for her bright rays erupt in the dip between two peaks and set the lake afire in a sparkling flash. A hot breeze blows up from the south, and the day quickly goes from icy to tepid all the way to summer. It is him whispering hot breeze through the flowers. Claire sheds her clothes anyway, the ever-present eye in the sky be damned once more-she is going to take an icy dip on a beautiful hot day. She swims naked for hours before falling asleep just as nude on the grass. A once perfect day. The afternoon is cool again; his good humor all spent.

Her bare feet weather the tundra well, as she expects. It is the blizzard that takes it out of her. The path was long, long ago and now the forest floor is lacking in green and brown patches. A vast expanse of white swallows her steps further back than even her keen eyes are capable of perceiving. Her jeans are icy damp up to mid-thigh. Claire crosses her arms tight across her chest in an attempt to keep in some warmth. Her blonde hair hangs in icy chunks framing her round blue face. She knows the cold should _hurt_. When it is this cold it should _hurt bad_. _I'm not afraid. This is all a dream. It doesn't matter that my feet are black then pink then black. It's a dream._

She stumbles as she breeches the edge of the woods and her breath catches when her momentum nearly takes her over a sheer cliff of gray stone and moss. The moon is projected huge and blue before her. Her arms hang limp. Her breath comes in short cloud bursts of wet iciness. A lone wolf lets out a long, loud cry. As he keens a sharp wind picks it up, slicing through her. There are no animals here. Only her and the monster. Her eyes squeeze close. He is singing out to her across the dusk of time. There is a terror within her that she has not felt in what seems a hundred years and perhaps it has been. Claire refuses to move, to make a sound.

The wind and the snow die down. The howling continues. Claire has the will of every Petrelli, accompanied by a stubborn streak a mile wide. She stays locked in place. The terror slips away as the hours wear on. Her breathing slows. She just wants to go to sleep. She is so tired. When it finally stops she is teetering on just this side of sleep and in her half awake state steps forward and tips over the edge. She runs like hell after pulling her broken doll parts back together inside her blood soaked clothes-praying she is not running straight into his arms.

Miles lay between where she heard him and how far she has gotten yet she runs still. Claire's fears are chasing her through the snow. Young and ever the victim. Here comes the big bad wolf through the woods. Her bloody scent trails behind her for him to stalk. The mirror looms again on her horizon for the first time in years. A strangled sob escapes her. She re-doubles her efforts pushing her perceptions of her capabilities. She feels her body struggling and continues to move regardless demanding that her will stand independent from restraints.

Nearing the water the ice becomes slippery beneath her rock-hard bare feet. She slides to a halt and grasps a piece of jutting ice. Behind her is only the blackness of the horizon, the cliff she dove off a low platform in the distance of white. No terror grips her, but she stomps the shelf violently as though driven by madness. A tiny island cracks off and she drifts out onto the black mirror ever so slowly. The dead stillness of the water seems to drag any mild momentum she had so she lowers her torso into the water and kicks. Her limbs are hard and uncoordinated as she pulls herself back up onto her tiny makeshift boat.

Hours pass and her good push becomes a lull. The buoyant ice has carried her into the center of blackness. She fears it is only her imagination that insists there are white caps in the distance ahead. Claire slips into the water once again. _It's not that far_, she insists to herself. She is ever so tired once more though. Her legs are becoming harder to pinwheel. Beneath her the sound of his whispers are a rising breeze around her ears and the frozen block that is her hair. A hard-wired electric tension tickles the base of her skull. She is too tired to be terrified as she slips below the surface. In the darkness below his hunger, his urge to kill and control, is waiting for her frozen carcass to drift into his waiting jaws.

She feels mangled hands reaching forward through the blackness. A single pair of zombie claws reaching out to wrench free the top of her decaying skull for all eternity. A hard jerk upwards doesn't even startle her in the numbed state she has resigned herself to. This is the final act. She is going to die in a serial killer's mind-lost in the blackness of his soul consumed by his evil. Another jerk flings her limp head forward like a shark or a fisherman exerting control over a catch before she breaks from the depths into the freezing night air.

A black figure crouches, one knee pressed into the ice. The length of his limbs threatens to overwhelm the tiny craft, but it barely bobs as she settles easily into his waiting arms. He cradles her, pushing her hair away from her face. Still numb, Claire looks up into his face and says the first thing that comes to mind now that he is in front of her, "what are you doing?" He laughs, his teeth stark white against the night sky above. It is then that she realizes that he isn't just cradling her he is clinging to her with all his might. His face is mere inches above, marvelling at her beauty even in her damp, matted state.

"I thought that was obvious," his tone is soft. Emerald eyes trail to the heavens. Years spent wandering this desolation alone only to end up in precisely the enemy's arms. Amazingly slow, he leans forward and presses his warm cheek against hers. "I can't afford to miss you any more than I already do," his hot breath is amazingly fresh. She feels hollowed out inside. The years have worn away many of the concerns from her daily life. Claire's eyes meet his. For a long moment shimmering emeralds become his entire universe before Claire's body surges upward in a spasm. Her lips press to his, her left hand sliding up his neck fingers twining in his hair, stroking.

Her perfectly soft, smooth lips press coolly against him. The universe melts away. The ice and the ocean dissolve. No stars linger. Claire knows that somewhere they are ten thousand miles away encased in solid flesh that experiences more than this. Or was it less? In the pitch black that this world has become (is it his? hers?) they find themselves near one another simultaneously as their lips are pressed together as their bodies lie, Claire's back pressed into his shoulder and head on a pillow next to his. A diorama sits up one piece at a time collectively next them.

Out of the scene constructed comes a prop and another. Chairs and tables sit up in two-dimensional cardboard cut outs before becoming solid pieces in a child's world. The diorama has become as large as the entire world and yet they still stand aloft from it in the darkness next to one another and lips pressed together and lying in Peter's apartment. Three separate awarenesses for each of them. This stupendous inexplicable feat of attention is barely a contemplation for either as the movement flows in a complex series of scenes.

Both of them know instantly what they are watching when the dark-haired man from Noah Bennet's nightmares walks through an immplaceable effervescent door to be greeted by a toddler sporting his mother's thick dark hair as well as her furrowed brow of consternation. Claire's heart reaches out to the boy at the obvious fear etched into his small features. In the darkness, her hand reaches for his and three sets of self-made minds touch simultaneously. Regardless of Sylar's intentions-his fears and hesitations-Claire's linking of those bonds throws their meshed awarenesses behind the eyes of the child to perceive his sensations. See his sights. Re-live Gabriel's past.

Claire stops trying to focus on everywhere she is and instead becomes entranced with the events unfolding before her. Gabriel does not spend much time alone with his father. His mother makes sure of it. She is always there-all biasedly blinding beauty and dark hair, talking to him and stroking his hair. She loves Gabriel, her little angel. It is the sunshine in his soul. This young boy's life is his mother. Father is a much darker shape than mother's dark sweetness, and the young boy's near-sightedness does not fool him. For even at the tender age of three young Gabriel is assembling a perception of the world delicately, one piece at a time. He connects the dots with an assurity beyond his years.

The toddler understands quite well that all of those dark stains on his father are blood. The sprayed line across his face...quite red. Oh yes, young Gabriel understands that for there to be that much blood there must be much pain. Very much pain. His father never seems to be injured. He does not think his father could be invincible. His foibles and frustrations drive him to violent outburts, and that is not how mother describes GOD. No, the blood means somebody else was hurt really bad. His father has no interest in helping others-a blind eye, as it were. It causes his little body to tremble in fear.

Time passes and many events transpire. Gabriel's father is a violent man and they suffer under the tutelage of his whims both mother and son. Until the moment arrives when young Gabriel, freshly spectacled chases his father out of a diner to witness his mother's murder. Mother's beautiful face with a slash of blood marring her perfect forehead lying in the gravel as father speeds away forever. There is a definite sense of finality to it. In the darkness Claire's hand tightens in his, their lips press together more tightly, and Claire's prone form on Peter's bed shudders a sigh. As a young child, he is frozen in place until Virginia Gray scoops him up and coddles him to her. They make for their station wagon and Gabriel whimpers, reaching over her shoulder towards _love_ as it lays dead in the street.

Again much time passes. Virginia smothers him. She is always hugging him, touching him. Trying to coddle him. She calls him _Gabriel, my angel_. At first it hurts terribly, then it merely aches, by the time his adopted father has disappeared _my little angel_ is a stone in his gut. His shock is deep and though he feels smothered he endures. This woman pays attention to him. She talks to him and feeds him, cares for him in her own weird ways. There are so many things to do wrong in Virginia's world. By the time he has recovered enough from his mother's death to listen when Virginia is cooing at him, the time has absorbed his father, mother, and adopted father in one swoop. His life beginning and ending with Virginia. An old woman and her son.

The boy has become tall and lanky. His clothes are modest, and the other children note how out of sync he is with fashion with the appropriate sneers and cruelties. Suddenly perception splits again and another scene begins over youthful Gabriel's life. It begins with fire. Sylar's heart beats hard when a spring-chicken Bennet appears early on. Claire's life from her birth, they had to get here in linear sequence and she is nearly a decade younger. Her life is a wild torrent of boisterous activity compared to Gabriel's quiet desk-related hobbies and hours upon hours of reading.

As the years flutter by in a silvery celluloid haze it is easy for Gabriel to see when the stone in his stomach became a white-hot poker for Virginia's opinion of him. Years of study, reading and perusing so much information wanting answers for this sensation of segregation from everyone he had ever met educated him to Virginia's opinions. He found her small minded and obstensible, obtuse, and other rude words that meant she had shit for brains. He wants to call it love, but really it is him coloring inside the lines. Playing the good boy because it is the best way to show that you love your mother. His awareness of the state of human beings in general, this condition of..._humanity_ locks him away from all of it-first inside, and then, after school, out as well.

In hindsight, Claire sees with scorching clarity the degradation of her family life. She is ashamed of her child self for being so jovial, so self-absorbed that she couldn't see it coming. Her father was good, but bright eyes see clearer. Her rose-colored lenses of school, clothes, chores, boys and love, yes, love had blinded her to his machinations and it was shameful. Life was good for the Bennet's. Pampered and well-cared for, these women were blinded by solipsistic narcissism. Noah Bennet already has a daughter and son when his own son arrives, and the third child does not receive as much attention, of course. Lyle is embittered by it and does not understand 'what is so special about Claire' or why his father is so committed to work...

Inheriting the watch shop at awkward nineteen is perfect for Gabriel as a young man. He appreciates the applied heredity, the meaning, and the responsibility. It is the perfect career in which he does not have to consistently stare someone in the face and work out how he _feels_ about what they are trying to do to him. The incontinuous stream of customers coupled with the dependable and engrossing work soothes his stressed soul from the aches and pains of high school. He keeps the shop as spotless as Virginia has taught him to keep all spaces compulsively and without fail.

Gabriel's years are quiet and unfulfilling. Claire's years are filled with lights, girls, and events. Claire is always working, cleaning, and playing. Gabriel is always working, working, and cleaning-his play time is lost under the pathological weight of a blinding need to read everything he encounters. Claire silently speculates it is because the outside world has become too much for him. It is undeniable for either of them that their abilities are smattered throughout their young lives. His inner push constantly driving him to find the _why_. Her bruises and scrapes gone before she knows it with never a broken limb.

Claire's first broken limb is the sure sign. Her discovery. She is alone in the house when she falls down the stairs. Being a cheerleader, needing her grace and poise consistently, it seems so stupid. Young girls can be so. Her pelvis juts uncomfortably and the knee is violently twisted inward. She gasps as the femur snaps back into place. Then instinct kicks in and she twists her torso, pressing down hard on the right side where the curve of her pelvic bone is pressing out against her taut stomach flesh. It slides right back into place and her fire-hot sore muscles are reduced to merely an ache and then she is whole again. She cries for hours. Her broken and lost sobs eventually embarass her. She has to show someone-prove it. This memory has been stolen from her. It is six months before she breaks the glass case arguing with Jackie and it leads her to brave the tide of mindless youth and Zach's face so long ago lost to her attentions stands out.

Gabriel receives no such solid communication from the heavens regarding the misnomers of his life. This history has already shown them so much that Sylar is not in the least surprised when his daily routines are suddenly edged in the periphreal by the blonde he will meet shortly and a tall, mousey-haired man with horn-rimmed glasses. He keeps his eyes forward, never turning to her though the urge grips him. They are so close, so intimately tied in so many ways in this eternal and infinite second that he does not think he can bear to see her face wearing the feelings that seem to be flowing through and around them as she watches him cling desperately to any minute vestige of recognition Chandra Suresh offers him. His descent into madness starts with the subtlest of pursuits.

Claire and Jackie are prepping for their sophomore year when the quartz connects with Brian Davis' head. She is organizing her school supplies and trying to decided if she wants to cut all of her hair off when the tears and horror overwhelm Gabriel Gray. He has always been off, but he has never been _bad_. Always such a good boy, Gabriel knows this is more than just a slip up. This is going to ruin the rest of his life. It is going to ruin everything, and yet...the answer is right there. The sensation of limbs he can conceptualize and control but not see elates him. When the object moves with his mere thought... Is it worth it? Could he hide the body? Of course he could, but his shame claws behind his eyes uncomfortably.

Claire becomes unable to concentrate on the images from her own life as Gabriel half a decade younger is rejected by Doctor Suresh, and suddenly Elle is at his door and in his life just when it seems that an end is inevitable. The betrayal is bitter, and within the liltling lies Sylar swears he tastes Claire's tears. The second time is more gruesome. He wanted to help Brian, but he wants to hurt Trevor. Hurt people hurt people. Gabriel's hurt is embedded within him, and although it has no name and no face he wears it on his sleeve as he rips the mind, power, and life from this man's body. _Show everyone how much better you are than I now..._

It takes time and development for him to hone any skill. He has spent much of his time attempting to escape people, and indeed his ability to escape notice is helping him to advance in this new life choice. Claire is slamming a stick shift muscle car into a brick wall when he shames himself again with the incident in the Walker household. It is such a mess. He thought it was the mother, but it was the girl. The father could freeze, and he is happy to give it up for his family's safety. The mother has no power. It is the girl. Forever a blood-covered shadowy figure he leans over the slight of a child and whispers, "hide." He wants it more than anything. It can't be more than anything if he won't murder a child for it. He dismisses the thought and moves to the next. Texas is ripe.

So jovial. So golden. Claire's cheer uniforms and high heels. Her cell phone and her pocket money. Boys and girls. Handsome young men eyeing her. Being warned by the time bender does nothing for the impact of their encounter. Even though he fails the image never leaves his mind. The first convergence of these three very separate adventurerers. He sees Peter first, and he knows this man is here to stop him. He can see it written all over his very Italian features when he tells the girl to run. Sylar enjoys drawing out the hunt-terrifying them more than necessary with a use of force he has never allowed himself. He wants this, and he is going to take it: girl or no. He knows his cause is lost when flint-bright emerald catching the light perfectly glare up at him as her face reconstructs despite his crushing blow. His first glimpse, first taste of her disdainful glare.

She crashes through his mind in jail. Her adventure moves further from him-their convergence down the line an elliptical trajectory. Noah's taunting isn't any worse than the hunger, his needs, or his memories of her. Slip of a blonde, right through his fingers. In the black Sylar's hand squeezes Claire's. When he was falling down she was climbing up. She found out truths, saved Peter, is trapped and yet escapes the ever-plotting grandmother, Angela Petrelli. They watch the death of his mother silently. Sylar feels mild trepidation regarding the fact that he has always considered himself impeccably careful and hindsight has revealed his inability to account for all variables. It is the end of history as he knows. It is just the end of his world. He doesn't need this woman anymore. Another woman fills his mind with her foolishness. His heart swells to see her and Peter working together. Even if it is to stop him. She is there at Kirby Plaza, and he wishes he had more time.

The pain and terror of his South American experience are subdued through the haze of time, but his manipulations come through loud and clear. Just as Claire's perceived isolation seems reticent though she somersaults and smiles with the best of them as she knows she can. The life, the adventure had been so heady. Everything had moved so fast. Her teenage mind finds ample rationale for her behavior regarding West's attentions. She thinks it hurts worse than anything that the bullet through Noah's eye is for his veins only. She has never met Maya, but her relief at saving the woman's life is lost in the following instant. _Always changing me,_ his mind calls out to her. _Every time our lives touch it changes every thing about me_. She does not answer because she knows that the next time he sees her it will change every thing about both of them.

Her fear for Nathan. It is finally her time to shine. She can save him. She can save her father's life. She is so determined to do it and the bucket of ice water that hits when her bedroom door swings open is instantaneous. Tall, he is so impossibly tall, dark and imposing. In the space outside this celluloid vision Claire refuses to dive with him. They shared the young boy. Their fingers entwined, they swallowed young Gabriel's fear together. She refuses to join. Once was enough. She wants to watch from the outside. Her delicate, genteel hold becomes a vice on his mind's hand. Sylar wants this moment of hers and he strives for her young feelings.

The diorama takes a step back and becomes a separate world for this future Claire, watching from a distance. Sylar's petite peach hand is grasping behind her. This psycho can talk quietly, evenly all he likes. She knows how heavy cheer trophies are. Fuck him. He barely moves from the upstairs. Standing framed in her bedroom door listening to her high heels trail from the wood floor to the carpet, then she opens the office door. It gives the shadow on the landing vicious pleasure to show her what power he does have. He had wanted to explain it. He wanted her to give it to him willingly. Silly little cow wants to act like everyone else.

How could she miss like that? Because he is a shadow. He is a dark breeze. Sylar feels the terror far more than he felt it grasping her hand days from this. It is now and it isn't just fresh-it is an open bleeding, screaming wound. Bungee cord wrapped around the pantry door knobs. Crouched in the corner beneath shelving clutching the knife Sylar reflects on the events just transpired. In the dream Claire's sweater had been whiter, warmer. She had been lacking the brown camisole beneath and the slip of strap revealed as the v-neck slips down her shoulder from exertion is titillating.

Her straight hair flies (_that's how I always knew it was a dream. My hair was straight. In the dream it was curled_ she whispers to him across the dark), and before he knows it he has stabbed himself in the chest. There is no righteous fire in this girl like he would feel. She continues to flee. Her life was bake sales, school work, cheerleading...these things could have prepared her but the _feeling_ isn't there. She doesn't need to hurt him. She just needs for him to not hurt her. She doesn't make it far. Her unwillingness to see beyond her sheltered idealist up-bringing prevents her from properly defending herself as she is. She behaves like one of them.

There is an audible _POP_ when the top her cranium is pulled off by the same invisible hands that have trapped her, moved the furniture, locked the doors and windows, and disconnected the phone. He is drooling with the intensity of his pain and leans out of her vision to spit on the floor. His confidence and candor return when he hears her words, "funny, I am looking for answers too." From inside of Claire he sees himself recognizing a new need from above her. His expression changes, and the intense pain does not quell his urgent desire for her understanding. Clear and concise, he answers her questions without revealing his thoughts.

Once more across the vast solipsism of separate minds and bodies and times Claire herself reaches out to himself inside of her. She senses that the second he finds it, the very second his intuitive aptitude allows her ability inside of him he has been overtaken. Leaning above her, he gasps in his first scent of her. She is everything. So sweet and voluptuous. A moment ago she was a ratted, mindless fool of a teenager destined to live the same rote disgusting life as the next docile mass-produced non-person. In this new moment his own natural ability tunes out his intelligence informing him that his hormones are in over-drive from this adaptation of his physicality being in such close proximity to this pheromone waterfall beneath him. His Hunger tells him that this girl is easily his mother, lover, and child.

He rises upright following his passion. Sylar poses his height statuesquely. Claire needs to remember this. She needs to see. His mother is there for his birth as he pulls the knife slowly from his chest revealing a good six inches of blood along the blade. He spreads the cloth to show the wound, but her eyes have gone glassy and come back by the time it closes. It wouldn't do to leave this woman violated as she were. He is too awestruck by the immensity of sensations to wish this could have occurred under different circumstances-to wish he had waited and let her give it to him instead of just taking.

There is more blood on her forehead than she remembers and...something else is different. She had pictured his dark shoulders moving away from her, but here she sees he can barely stand to turn away. His eyes, his soft tone. He watches her even as he gently closes the door behind him. For just an eternity they are separated by mere inches of wood and a wide world of expectations. He stands for a long moment studying the grain of the door. She remains perched on the edge of her family's black coffee table, relatively unharmed. He smiles softly to himself. At least she didn't burst into tears.

When the incident in his painting occurs he is murdering agents doing their job. Enjoying the bright California sunshine, it is fun when the woman tasers him and he finds it...tickling. In Claire's bed the tears finally come. Her younger self bawls into her pillows begging any god that might hear to take his awful scent from her. She flies into the bathroom, ripping her sweater and camisole off, knocking things off the counter. The water is boiling hot and she scrubs until her skin is fire-engine red.

He feels what he didn't sense through psychometry in Stephen Canfield's house. Her humiliation when she tells her mother he got what he came for and has to admit it wasn't her virginity. Her shame at her behavior after. How could such heat have encompassed her when this shard of glass felt like nothing? This was worse than rape. He took her mind, her power, her body's fidelity, and her capacity to enjoy everything else in one afternoon. In less than half an hour.

Oh, his foolishness. He should have known that Elle was a real live wire. Angela's words sting no less now that he knows they lack any truth than they did when she uttered them and he believed her. Meredith's life lessons burn the path of righteous indignation in Claire Sylar was looking for previously. They touch in four places at once again in Stephen Canfield's house. She feels him sensing her this time. No sympathy for him exists within in this instance. He lit the fire. Despite how correct he is regarding Noah she is not interested; can't take his scent locked in the car. She hates to admit it, but it does mean something that he apologizes. Mostly because Brody was so unrepentent. _Wish what you will, but you use as much as he does_, she whispers in the dark.

For the first time he senses something within himself akin to Peter Petrelli. Sylar is no fool, and though he is lost and confused the coincidence of Peter having his power does not escape him-his tale of a Sylar contained. Hope swells in his breast. If Peter is like him then he is like Peter, and she _loves_ Peter. Claire is proud of how she handles Doyle. So is he. Watching her take the bullet like a champ he can see how much she has grown. Still petite, her growth stunted by a deranged pituitary, her slight body has become formidable. She is learning that she can affect these outcomes.

It had never come up in coversation, and he had never returned to the house in Coasta Verde to snoop so it is news to him that Claire brings Pinehearst Elle. It is news that they trade up unbeknownst. Hilarious, ironic news. He _gave_ Peter to Claire. Practically tossed him right into her arms. Looking back now it is so obvious that Arthur fed him Elle with precisely the same amount of care that Angela fed him Bridget regardless of Sylar's intentions. He almost blushes at the eagerness with which his past self absorbs Elle's attentions. Arthur's as well. Looking here he sees the arc that brings Peter inside his wall eventually.

Noah kicks his ass-despite being an old man-repeatedly. His dislocated shoulder is an agony, but it is nothing compared to the gunshot wound and dislocated shoulder they experience as one. Peter hears them both groan from his seat in the living room of his apartment and sticks his head around the corner. Claire and Sylar continue to dream. They die in the dream together simultaneously. Peter is standing in the doorway when they both gasp. Then they are quiet again, but it has rattled him and he sits down at the end of the bed hoping that it means soon. Claire's mind is shaken and now she understands. She understands why he slit his fucking throat. God damn it Noah.

Mother's voice commanding him to stop. No bargaining chip would have taken it from him as pissed as he was. Only Claire's single cry keeps him from returning the favor Noah has done him this afternoon. Hiro Nakamura is always full of surprises. Within the barrage of his returning abilities and the severe lack of Claire's scent in the air he suddenly finds Elle...inadequate. Her lie, bold and to his face, is worse. For just a single clear moment he was in her presence before being ripped away again. The dark beach does not hide his remorse. The man who makes incarnate gaps in space and time cannot save Claire from her grandfather despite intentions.

His spoiled tantrum is nearly too much for Claire. His outburst at Sue Lander's office displays a lackadaisical commitment to his new persona that is dangerous. It is a wild act and shows he has lost some of his objective. His act of contrition-his mercy kill that saves Peter any blood on his hands is minute considering where his self-centered narcissism is about to take them. It is complicated and the Petrelli's make it ever so personal. Here the ellipses, so small, joins again on Level 5. He can help the Petrelli's keep it in the family. He can make it his family. Surely Claire will blossom into his child-she only requires some mild tutelage. He can sense strength within her. Her solid intent is centered on his demise currently, but it is easy to play to his strengths and everyone in this game has an accessible weakness. It is his Claire.

The flaw in this plan is his blind-side. Claire is strong only in herself. She knows she will survive this, and the only thing necessary for this outcome is that he be wrong. She is not a monster. Surely neither is the rest of her family. _So sure_, he mutters to her ghost. It is Meredith that gives her the killing edge. The lie that falls so easily from her mother's lips never to be forgotten, "I'm coming. Just...j-just give me a minute," hurts more than _anything_. Her heart is a stone and her eyes sting. If he is going to take her mother from her when she has just found her then she will make it worth his effort.

In her small hand the shard of glass is huge and she is satisfied with the sickening _*thunk*_ from the back of his skull. The blood in her hand recedes into her body. She heard him demanding answers from her grandmother. She is almost tempted to spit on him. _You want family_, young Claire's mind hisses, _I'm sure you have plenty in hell_. His story is a shadow beneath her silverscreen life. A warmth rises in his chest because he feels the truth in her when she tells her grandmother that she can _feel_ that he is alive. She can feel him. He is a moth fluttering at the edges of her mind.

Sylar's father is a criminal with a small mind and petty interests. It drives him into a situation that solely exists to prove he is not any of these pre-determining formative blocks. Instead he loses more of what he already wants desperately. Claire becomes proactive because she no longer has a choice. Every turn she takes she is isolated and patronized. It emboldens her actions. Mexico tans her already golden skin only slightly. The woman who climbs up from her grave-robbing to toss her long blonde hair is more along the lines of the fire Sylar was trying to start.

Somewhere they have lost the sensation of lips pressed together as their dream has dissolved entirely into this double-theater diorama; an inexplicable tell-all shamelessly overwriting their lives. They stand aloft in the non-world and Claire shares for the first time his initial stolen memories of Nathan. Tales of a successful career laced with lies, a gorgeous dark haired wife but consistent blondes on his arm, and betrayal in general. "**I'm not going to be you. I'm going to be better than you**," he tells Nathan. She is sickened by his logic, but agrees with his sentiments. They both smirk at the celluloid reflection when he tells her in Nathan's face that he thinks that she should be right at the front of the action as well. The Stanton Hotel. The tension is palpable between them, but she grits her teeth and keeps her mother at the front of her mind.

When he slits Nathan's throat the spear through Claire's chest feels like his own, and Sylar's suddenly split perceptions break them apart. It is a flurry of emotion and lights before they can sort out again and it is Thanksgiving. The violent thrust that engulfed them solidifies into a heavy feeling when Nathan's hand slides through Peter's on the hospital roof. The incident at her school is more heedy this time. So deeply interconnected he can smell himself as she smells him, and the moment he leans over her...the pen is a solid commitment to her convictions. It does not matter how excited his presence has made her and it even does not matter that he has lied to her. What matters is that he is right. A first, as far as Claire can tell. Though she hasn't a name for it yet, two years and nearly a century later she knows that it is Gabriel's earnestness that she has never known from Sylar which allows her this admission of him. Her hand tightens on his in the darkness even as the sensation is fading.

Claire's hours trapped suffocating with her father are suspended in agonizing slow motion behind his years of solitude. He almost laughs at himself asking 'why Peter Petrelli?' It seems so obvious. His father was a stalwart message from the earth beckoning him to return to the grave despite his handicap regarding said option. He was destined for failure. Peter Petrelli was a shining pillar of light in this world of manipulation and mutual destruction. There was also the fact that he had experienced Sylar's hunger. Maybe if Claire wasn't his destiny then Peter was? A good man with the patience of a Saint offering him...acceptance of his existence. A place to start considering the inhumane animosity with which he had treated his victims. _Pillars of the Earth_, Claire's epiphany is hilarious to her.

Her fall is glorious. Gabriel's Cupid's bow smile shines for the first time through Sylar's sharp devilish features. _Breaking your daddies hearts, little girl_. Brave new world indeed. Peter's phone rings from his jacket pocket. It's his mother. "Help Claire. Have Sylar and Noah meet me in the park. Noah knows where I am referring to," he overhears Angela Petrelli say. His mother expects Peter to turn on the Petrelli charm, use their fame and recognition to control the situation. She didn't tell him what to say. Peter wraps his arms around Claire's waist, turns to the cameras and says, "we will arrange a public statement," and rockets into the sky with her en tow.

In the park, Angela ignores Noah's stern glare when she implores the newly reformed hero, "what should we do?" His new persona is taken aback. He knows that it is always a game with these two. He can barely believe he went along with them this far, and suddenly he is very aware that he is precariously alone with the individuals responsible for a decades worth of torture in his life. _What would Peter do?_ Peter would respect his elders. Peter would respect the good they had done-would squeeze his eyes into tiny little slits and look past the horrid. Angela already knows what to do, of course. She is testing him.

"Damage control. Immediately. The Carnival is not interested in causing any harm without Samuel's influence, but they need support to prevent it happening again. I recommend Angela and Hiro Nakamura conduct all further business with them as they will never trust Noah, Claire, or myself. Give Claire what she wants. The VIP treatment, of course, will be necessary. She will need constant guarding for a lengthy period of time from fanatics and...other empaths. It would be convenient for us if Tracy Strauss were in need of a job..." he frowns and pauses in his assessment. He feels a great deal of trepidation at the idea of treading on the interests of others (particularly these two) and decides to keep to himself what he thinks Noah and Angela should do.

Peter and Claire land next to them. He turns those doe eyes from the closet on her again. No man should be capable of looking that vulnerably at a young girl and she bares her teeth at him. "Claire, go with your father. Please locate Tracy Strauss," Angela intervenes, "Peter, Sylar, please come with me." She turns and leads them to a waiting car and the only reason Sylar follows them in would be the years of trailing Peter he has engrained in himself. "Continue," she prompts. He finds continuing this charade in front of his friend slightly uncomfortable and steels himself. "It would be useful to use a facsimile of The Company to support Claire's efforts. It would be wise to continue with its previous iternerary as well-uh, without the Guantanamo tactics. I would very much like to work for you, Ms Petrelli," it was an impulsive finish, but he cannot see himself without a solid anchor and he had **liked** his job for them. He was good at it.

She studies them both with shrewd shrivelled eyes. Peter is uncharacteristically quiet in the surreality. The hum of the car swallows the both of them in wonder. They hadn't had time to appreciate it before. _We're free_. Angela interrupts their reverie, "that is exactly what I was thinking. We'll see you at work tomorrow morning, Agent Gray." She needs to keep an eye on this potential threat, but it is still a place to start. The chauffeur opens the door and they are outside of a familiar apartment building. Peter hands him his keys, "I'm gonna check on Emma. I'll be back in a while." Peter shoots off again. He stands on the street for a long time before letting himself in.

Claire's life is a blitz of faces and hands, introductions and incidents. It reminds Sylar of his flash of Nathan the politician. His own life consists of a Company desk job and he likes it. He enjoys solving problems and putting together strategies. His desire to commemorate the lives he tore from the world so irreverently leads to an out of control spiral of perceptions. Claire catches Angela trading him his pelt for access to the Las Vegas vault. She had wondered about the underneath of those crisp button downs. He revels in their shared sensation of having a friend. Claire and Tracy make a great team. Peter and Sylar do as well.

The sounds and speed of the events are out of sync. They see Gray & Sons watch shop once more before the images start to fade. They lost the feeling of lips pressed together long ago, and now clasped hands are a mere pressure before a crumbling world stage. They both grope for one another. In the darkness, natural human instinct drives two immortals with the gut reaction of expecting danger. The distance between them grows. Individually, the sudden existential partialism feels like being thrown down a well. Sylar is familiar with his. Claire however finds it stark and lonesome.

He is first to climb from over-stimulated states to hearing. Sylar sits up and leans against the wall, rubbing one eye. Claire lies next to him, her breathing still even. Peter steps out of the bathroom in only a pair of sweat pants with a mouth full of lo mein noodles. He splutters through his food, barely managing to catch the stray noodles in the take out box. Claire shoots upright and gasps, nearly leaping from the bed. It startles Peter all over again. All three of them laugh quietly, and she turns on the bed to look at him.

Sylar's face is serious again. "Say something, Claire," he implores. Her green eyes are wide. Her face reveals nothing. "_Fucking say something_," he snarls loudly. The glass rattles and the room vibrates around them with the force of his tantrum. She pulls her huge green skirt up around her and moves next to him on her knees. Her thoughts are silent. Sylar's heart is suddenly pounding. Her dainty hands reach forward. The right slides through his hair, and her left hand slides along his temple, thumb stroking his brow. She pulls him to her, pressing his face into her stomach. If it is possible, Peter's eyes are even wider than her own. She glances out the window-it's dark. "Let's go out to breakfast," she says. She smiles at Peter. He knows that smile. It's a Petrelli trade mark. The putting-you-on.

Things have never been comfortable between the three of them, but the silence seems almost contrary to that expectation. Claire refused to put her glitteratti mile-high claws back on and instead walks in black stocking feet a few steps ahead of them. Peter claps his friend firmly on the back and offers him a smile, tilting his head. Sylar smiles back. "Where is everyone?" Claire calls over her shoulder. "It's New Year's," Peter answers. "Go four blocks over and it's a mad house."

The diner is empty other than two old men in the corner reading separate papers, an older waitress, and the cook. The three of them make quite the image: Sylar dark and imposing in his button down, Peter in sweats and a tee, and Claire in a ballroom gown. No one bats an eye at her monstrous shoes in the seat next to them. The waitress doesn't even comment on the fact that the three of them are relatively silent during their meal. When Sylar excuses himself under the pretense of using the restroom Peter whirls on her all wild-eyed curiousity.

"Shhh," she puts a golden finger over her lips. "He's just eavesdropping." Peter raises his eyesbrows, but respects her wishes. She calls Tracy and after about twenty minutes a car rolls up to the curb outside. "I'll call you," she tells Peter and goes to step into the Cadillac without even turning to him. "Wait," he blurts. She smiles slowly, dropping her shoes into the car seat and turning back to him. "What...what do you think happened to us?" His doe eyes are on high alert and her smile makes him...nervous. "You don't know?" Her sardonic tone implies that it should be so _simple_.

"When you came back from that recon mission from just north of the Black Sea..." She starts. Her eyes are fresh green leaves in the early morning hour and as she speaks they seem to soften. "For the first time, you had a drink or six with my father and Renee at Nozawa's restaurant." Their eyes are locked together and everything else has faded into the background. "He told you-after my dad said Lauren would be expecting him early and he had to turn in for the night... Renee said, 'if she ever kisses you I will turn you into a prince.' You said 'what?' And he laughed and told you that you were drunk." She blushes lovely, "you were thinking about me pretty loudly."

"What does this mean about us?" He whispers breathlessly. "It means I'll call you," she answers coolly before turning to slide into her seat. They watch the car roll down the block and turn the corner. "Okay, spill," Peter demands. "Where do I even begin?" The immortal's smile is benevolent. Peter senses an inner tension that has always been within Gabriel that is missing. He is...content. "You spent a century together?" Peter asks. They start back toward their shared apartment. "Not really..." Gabriel says. The morning sun finally peeks between two tower blocks.

"Did you find what you were looking for?" Peter continues pressing. "Not really. In fact, I think it made it worse," he answers. "Do you think she is going to call you?" Peter is watching him, studying the way he is watching the sky and the street and every little detail. "Oh, yes," he answers contentedly. Gabriel Sylar Gray is quite certain that Claire Bennet will be contacting him. How could she resist?

Coming soon! Part 2: Baby Can You Dig Your Man!


	2. Baby Can You Dig Your Man

Baby Can You Dig Your Man

The hum of her Ducati carries to him from down the street. It is the sound he has been waiting for and, from her upstairs window, he shifts the treatments ever so slightly with the backs of his fingers, watching as she rolls up the street. She parks outside of the garage, and it takes all the weight of her small frame to knock the kickstand down. Sylar steps back from the window as she reaches to pull off her helmet. He's relieved she parked outside. The instant the garage door comes up, she is sure to know someone has been rifling through her things. He had not made a mess, per se, but he did not disguise his snooping as he might once have. Snoop he had, too. In an hour, he had been through the tools and equipment in her garage, her car, and her kitchen. He was just starting on her bedroom when the sound of her approach caught him.

She leaves her helmet sitting on the seat of her Monster 696 and unshoulders her bag. Claire is shrugging her short leather jacket off of one shoulder-mail in her mouth and backpack hanging beneath her bunched coat-when she spots him perusing the coffee table magazines on her couch. The mail flutters to the floor, one letter sliding several feet across the hard wood of the entranceway. "Man, you're a creep!" She says it loudly, but the incredulous humor in her voice implies that she expects no less. "Hello, Claire," he answers. _Play it nonchalant._

Her blonde hair is cut short and, though pressed by the helmet, it still curls prettily upward in wide ringlets right up the back of her head. Her wide green eyes are ringed by exaggerated smoky makeup. It gives her the appearance of age, maturity. "Hello, Sylar," she sighs, annoyance lacing her tone. One petite peach hand reaches down and gathers her splayed letters before she sighs again and walks right through the foyer hall and into the kitchen out of sight. "What are you doing here?" she calls. "You said you would call," he answers from the doorway, causing her to jump. "It's been six months," he finishes.

Her jacket is slung across the back of a bar stool and, in the seat, her bag sits unzipped and empty. She is pulling fruits and vegetables from a brown paper bag on the counter and depositing them in her crisper drawer. "I've been busy," she says between the fridge and bag. "For six months?" It sounds accusatory. "Yes, for six months. I said I would call," she snarls. What happened to playing it nonchalant? _Dial it back a notch_. "I'm sorry," he lowers his tone and injects what he hopes sounds like genuine hurt, "I couldn't wait." She huffs, folding the empty brown bag and tossing it in the cabinet beneath the sink. It is obvious that she is searching for something else to keep her hands busy when her eyes finally connect with his.

He can see her sympathies overwhelming her. She is so much like her uncle. Sylar feels a wave of unexpected remorse for playing dirty. "I just needed more time," she sighs, leaning back against the counter. Her blouse stretches prettily around her curves. The whole house smells of her, and this last hour has filled him in on a lot of what he has been missing. She is maturing. Her short hair and business attire are just the beginning. Speckled throughout the entire home, he found nuances of her quiet development. Something inside of Claire has changed. Claire has transcended the only sin of which he ever found her guilty: she has put away her lack of particularness.

"Claire," he starts as he steps forward. Her gaze does not waver and she doesn't move away, so he steps into her personal space. "I didn't think you would be able to stay away so long," his tone is intentionally low, sultry. Her green eyes sparkle in the evening light. Her hair has whited out in the last six months, and she is even more golden, if that is possible. "Honestly, I didn't think I would be able to either," her answer is a breathy sigh. Emboldened by her seeming lack of a weapon, he presses his hips into hers and a palm to her spine, just above the tailbone.

Her smoky eyelids droop, and she tilts her heart-shaped face up expectantly. The empath can feel that he has consumed her whole-filled her senses with his image, scent, and feel until she is drowning in it. Her tortured soul screams in meek protest as her body betrays her, and he becomes the breeze, mountains, sky again. As though they were locked within the dream once more... Sylar's attention wavers. He can sense her. Everything is right here. But the dream... Claire's nimble fingers start at the top button of her blouse, pale pink nails waving deftly in and out as she trails down the front of her shirt quickly.

There is a camisole beneath her top that matches her nails, but Claire is blushing as though she is completely nude in front of him again. Her plush lips curl inward and her tongue peeks from between, wetting them. "I... uh, I don't think I can give you what you want," she whispers. Sylar's fingers slide into the hair at the base of her skull. Claire's mouth parts; her pupils dilate. He tilts her head forward and whispers to her eyes, "When I was... _him_... it was you. When you hugged me, and I felt your _love_... I knew it was wrong. You hate me. _You_ **hate **_me_."

"So what do you want from me?" She is breathing harder than necessary. Her home has become a shadowed maelstrom of nothing compared to the intensity of their interest in one another. Sylar nuzzles her, his light grazing of stubble sanding across her soft cheek. He presses his lips against her ear. Her small pearl earring tickles his bottom lip when he says, "Everything you have and what's left after that, too." Her out-of-sync polite, "oh," is captured by his mouth and immediately swallowed as a sharp moan replaces it.

The petite blonde's mouth is warm and inviting so he slips his tongue in. This is going far better than he expected it to. Intimately pressed together, he feels her mind searching out any child of Mnemosyne that might salvage her inner self from this overwhelming urge. Her mother, her father, her father's death. The dream fast that flowed the story of his life into her, it had given her something she had never previously been capable of conceptualizing. Nathan's face, ashen, as his blood lets freely from the gap in his throat. His ghost of long ago growls amusedly in her mind, "_Claire is going to be so mad at me_."

It gives her enough strength to pull back, but he's trapped her between his heat-radiating form and the cold island counter. She turns away in his arms. It doesn't alleviate the heat any, but without his handsome face looming so close-all strong jaw-line and captivating bedroom eyes-some of the blinding passion lifts from her clouded mind. "Sylar-" she gasps when his thumb grazes her lower lip and his hips press suggestively against her from behind. The hand cupping her face slides across her velvet skin and down her neck. He grasps her shirt and pulls down, trapping her hands between them. "Yes?" He purrs into her ear, his left hand still splayed across her lower belly over the thin camisole, his surgeon's hands tickling.

"I...I c-can't-" she lets loose another gasp that turns into a moan when he jerks her hands free from her shirt and tosses it dismissively behind himself. Black heels teeter precariously in the small space and Claire catches herself with both open palms on the counter top. His mouth has returned to her ear, and Sylar's smell begins to envelope her wholly once more. It is deliciously tantalizing. Fresh mint, bath soaps, and something other-a lingering scent that she can only describe as _him_. This is too easy and, though he has considered the matter already, the thought of her virginity crosses his mind again.

A blazing hot kinetic line cuts straight up her spine-skin reknitting instantly-as he splices her under shirt with one finger. "You can't just take whatever you want!" she finally cries out. It sets Sylar's heart pounding. Taken aback, he warily steps away from her. Claire stands with her palms still pressed to the counter and, somewhere a hundred years ago in their minds, they both see him in exactly the same position. This is why Elle could never have had him as she wanted him. He needs these boundaries, and Claire will always call him on it. "You can't just manipulate everyone into doing whatever you want! I... I need more time. If you want this to work. I just... need more time."

She is still panting, and her cheeks are flushed a lovely rose. Tears squeeze from the corners of her eyes, but she ignores them. Her shadow of a suitor watches her profile carefully, gauging his next decision. Impulsively, he feels compelled to tell her that he _could_ get whatever he wants through manipulation as long as, on occasion, he was willing to concede regardless of his ego... but it is a waste and he knows it. That isn't what Claire wants to hear, and it isn't going to sway her opinion of him any, either. Sylar forgets the ball is in his court, his eyes on the fine shape of her spine, golden and lean, revealed between the slit he made in the back of her cami.

He settles for, "You cut your hair." She barks out a laugh, and those errant tears drop-one, two-from the end of her dark lashes. Turning back to him, she leans against the counter, just as she was a few moments ago, "Do you like it?" Flushed and half-dressed, it makes him want her even more. "No," his tone snide, but she smiles anyway. Sylar knows she is thinking of his fantasies, running his long fingers through all that golden-honey hair... She chuckles a huff through one hand as she swipes at her reddened face in an attempt to regain some control.

Claire takes in a shaky breath and says, "I know that you can... feel me. You can feel what it's like..." She looks around helplessly, once again grasping at some semblance of a normal world inside all of the madness that her life always is. "Behind every desire you have, another one is waiting to be liberated once the first one's sated! It never ends with you! With any of you! My grandmother, Renee, Peter, my father-all of you! When is it going to matter what I want?" Her shouts turn to growls. Sylar watches her wild gesticulations with mild amusement. His concern has washed away under her revelations. Same argument, different day. "You want this..." he answers steadily, unrelenting.

"I have spent years believing in things I don't understand... _years_, and I have suffered for it," her flush has faded, but she is still rumpled and desirable. Claire continues, "You showed me that it is worse to think you do understand. It is _worse_ to believe that you are right than to just _**not know **_**what the hell is going on**!" Her small feet toe out of her heels, and she steps down to the linoleum bare foot, glaring up at him. Sylar considers his words carefully, "I _know_ you want this. You can't deny-" Her outburst is unexpected, "I know _you know_!" They stare at one another, lost in the enigma of this social compunction.

She takes another shuddering breath and steps closer to him. The tear streaks on her face have been wiped away, and she is golden and perfect again. Nearly inviting... all of his attention is trapped by her wondrous face, so close to his and yet they might as well be a million miles away from one another. "The mediator between the mind and the hands must always be the heart," she says quietly. Her small hands reach out for his, and he gives them freely in supplication. Whatever she desires. Tiny fingers trace the bones in his hands, and her eyes study his, "... and my heart won't let me."

He ponders her words, hoping she will move closer again. Her scent is as tasteful to him as his is to her and, though he hates to admit it, an _ache_ is beginning to develop in his middle and... lower. The pad of her forefinger traces down the back of his hand and she steps past him, sliding the glass door to her patch of backyard open. She steps out gingerly. A bright streak of orange-red spotlights the open dooway as the sunset reaches the peak of its beauty. He shrugs out of his jacket and tosses it over hers before stepping out the door after her.

The glint of dying sun is perfectly in line with the top of the tall worn fence, and he lifts a hand to block the excess light. His blood freezes. Claire's prone form is relaxed in the grass, limbs outspread; the jagged opening above her eyebrows has none of the finesse he had applied. Her blood is black in the early evening light against the neon grass. Standing above her corpse, the shadow unfurls upward. He cracks his neck first to the left, then to the right. His oxygen tank lies already discarded, and he jerks the plastic cord from his face-offended by the thing. "Hello, _son_," Samson says, in the same tone he greeted him last time.

It was only a second. Just long enough to take his jacket off. How? He sees it before he can even formulate a response. A tiny piece of pinecone-shaped meat, clenched between Samson Gray's forefinger and thumb. "What are you doing here?" Sylar snarls. "Your girlfriend called me," he answers with a broad smile. "I wasn't really interested in the long and the short of it but, from what I gather, she'd rather _die_ than spend eternity with you." If possible, his smile widens even further, and he pops the piece of meat into his mouth. He can hear Samson's teeth masticating Claire's soul.

"As a matter of fact, it was high on her priority list that you _suffer_ for the rest of your life. As long as that happens to be..." His implication is clear, but Sylar has gone a bit deaf. A little dumb. He feels blinded. Claire's corpse is losing its golden sheen, a pallid gray replacing it. Her green eyes have glassed over black. The broken cranial cap is a sodden, withered mass of red strings of hair. His father takes a step forward, and he loses it. All of it. He can smell the fresh grass, Claire's blood, and he rejects it all. This is impossible. _This is impossible_.

From the center of his black little heart he reaches out, with his pain and terror screaming across the night of all human minds, "_**CLAIRE! Claire!**_" To his surprise, her answer is instantaneous, "Sylar! What the-" _You're alive!_ His joy and relief are cut off swiftly as his vision swims back into reality, and his hands are wrapped around the neck of another-very real and present-blonde. Her sunken features are tinged blue, and she gurgles through chapped lips incessantly, despite the killing pressure on her throat.

"-divine power bestowed in different ways on men, but darkness lay ahead... Life is frail, unsubstantial-man like a shadow in a dream. Merely improbable. Highly improbable, not impossible. When both the teacher and the taught are young-" Her muttered insanities are indecipherable to him, and he drops his hands from her, realizing that the freezing is an actual sensation. Something clicks into place. He is outside Lake Baikal in Siberia. Search and rescue mission. This isn't who was supposed to be inside. This young woman...

He looks around in horror. Her alabaster skin shimmers in the low light. The dirty fur she is wearing does nothing to conceal her bare flesh. On the unclothed mattress, there are piles of dried flowers scattered haphazardly. This is the Goddess of Limbo. Sylar's fabled white whale. "Illyana-" the name has barely left his lips just as his hands have barely left her undulating throat. "Fifty more shocks will never return your soul to its body again!" she snarls at him, her face twisting angrily; then she is gone. Simply vanished. Eluding them once more-alas. He looks around more thoroughly.

Like the previous Level 5 inhabitant, Knox, she swallows the feelings of others and turns them into power. The two unconscious agents on the floor are what she has been feeding off of, and he crouches over the figure nearest him, rolling the man over. He hits the nail on the head first try, and the recipient of his attentions begins to come around slowly. Noah looks up at him blearily, "You saved my life." The older man sounds incredulous and covers his own surprise by coughing out some of the dust in his lungs. "Let's not start keeping tabs," Sylar answers him wryly.

They tumble out into the Siberian morning sun. Noah Bennet drops down heavily on the embankment. Sylar thinks pleasantly to himself of the nude blonde that once lay on this very shore, in his mind, dreaming of him. It is marvelous how close they are to exactly where it supposedly happened. The third agent-a rookie, no less-continues to cough and curse behind them. "She got away again," Noah says flatly. "Of course she did," Sylar answers. He refuses to admit it, but his inability to detect a pattern in the adolescent girl's appearances are frustrating him endlessly. This was supposed to be a simple pick-up. "Next time," the aging man promises him. Sylar nods in agreement.

The mid-October weather is freezing. It shows clearly on the delivery man's wind-burned face, above his high-collared coat. Peter catches the door and receives the packages, signing awkwardly with one hand. Sylar hears from the kitchen and slides the last of the dishes into an upper cabinet before ripping the tape to refold the box. He drops it on the stack of empty boxes near the door and joins Peter in examining the curious gifts. "It's from my mother," Peter tells him. Sylar nods, waiting expectantly for him to open either box. Peter hands him the smaller box on top, "This one's for you."

They tear into their individual packages like young boys, unafraid of making a mess in the middle of the riot that moving in has already caused. Sylar parts the tissue paper and stares unabashedly. "She is kidding, right?" He asks. Peter is holding out an invitation at an arm's length, "You are cordially invited to a masquerade gala Halloween night as 'God Sent.'" Peter pulls a mask out of his box. The face of his mask appears white vinyl, and a gold halo extends upward at an angle. Peter looks at him through the hoop, "She has to be. What does yours say?"

"You are cordially invited to a masquerade gala Halloween night as 'The Monster.'" Sylar shows him his own mask-a lichen colored mockery of Frankenstein's monster. Shining bolts jut from either temple with a long puckered scar between the two. Peter digs underneath his mask, wondering why his box is so much bigger, and out comes a set of feathered white wings. "Those look expensive," his roommate comments. Peter's nose is scrunched up as though it smells terrible, and one eyebrow has nearly reached his hairline, "I don't care. I am _not_ wearing these."

He and Peter arrive early. Peter informs him that this is always best because it prevents embarassing greetings with the hostess. Angela is nowhere to be seen when they arrive, however, and instead they find themselves in a nearly empty ballroom. It fills quickly in the first half-hour. Even though he has no reason to expect her, his eyes watch the door, waiting for a small blonde. The wrong blonde enters wearing Peter's wings, and Peter is of course there to greet her with a kiss to the cheek. Sylar barely contains his jealousy at the simple easy gesture of affection between Emma and Peter.

He waves his scotch glass in the direction of a passing waitress, and the girl nods in return. He is caught by surprise when he turns back, and there _she_ is. She is wearing the red dress from the sorority mixer of so long ago, fishnets, and her black McQueen claws. Tall black hair is raised in a conical shape with lightning-trace streaks of white flying back from either temple and, despite the sharp black-and-white mask, he is certain it is her. One hand reaches out to a passing tray and picks up a champagne flute, black nails wrapping gracefully around the stem. His heart skips a beat.

The waitress switches out his glass, and he barely acknowledges her presence. He follows Claire's movement through the crowd, sidling left around a small group conversating. She hands her champagne flute to Peter in the middle of excited conversation with Emma, practically shoving the glass piece into his hand. Both blondes laugh, their hands working wildly. It is impossible for him to follow their signed conversation through the mingling crowd, despite actively trying. Something about enjoying things and work.

She migrates through the crowd easily. A turn here, a greeting there. He finds himself marvelling at her social savoir-faire. He can play dress-up and pretend all he likes, and no amount of faux confidence bleeds through when he is playing himself. Claire is a fair blossom in a garden of weeds. The same waitress catches him on the other side of the room and freshens his glass again. "Feeling sorry for yourself?" a thick French-Haitian accent asks from next to him. No wonder the room was beginning to feel so warm. He pushes his mask up to his forehead and glares at the exaggeratedly blank mask next to him.

"What are you supposed to be?" Sylar asks him. "I am 'The Silence,' according to our employer," the man most know professionally as 'The Haitian' answers him. Sylar wipes the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. The sensation is strange after so long without feeling any pressure from his body regarding the surrounding environment. "So why did you do it?" he asks, pulling a strong swallow from his Macallan scotch and actually feeling the sharp sting of its taste warming him. The full-faced mask offers him nothing, "Because it is what she needs." He has waited ten months to ask, and the answer is insufficient.

"Renee!" Her voice is excited and she bounces up to them, all wide white smile between black plum lips. "You are so my dance partner for the next five songs!" Her tan _is_ darker. Claire reaches out for the man next to him, taking his hand and turning her back on Sylar without so much as a glance. It burns the hell out of his already inflamed senses. He hadn't been paying much attention to the music, but the volume has been turned up and the lights down. Sylar watches them, his face red and pride sore. One huge dark hand is spread across the red fabric on her lower back. Deep brown and golden fingers intertwine. She throws her head back to laugh at something he has said. It is obvious she is more than a little drunk.

He turns away to find the same waitress at his elbow to replace his glass once more. "What are you doing?" he snarls at her. He isn't usually one to abuse the help, but suspicious behavior is suspicious behavior. "Ms. Petrelli told me to make sure you always have a fresh glass," she answers meekly. He apologizes half-heartedly and, in the second he was turned away, he has lost sight of Claire. "It's high noon somewhere, my friend," the Haitian tells him as he moves past. Sylar can hear the smile in his voice. He stands on tip-toes, looking around and over others.

The masks and costumes-wild hairpieces and headdresses-distort his perceptions of the room, and it takes him a long moment to realize that _he is drunk_. It's been a while. The sensation isn't new, but it is fresh. He stood idly and drank three or four glasses of scotch (he can't remember which) and now he is moving through the crowd. His hands brush soft feathers and hard glitter. He is so engrossed in searching for her, he doesn't even excuse himself as he pushes through. He wonders about the Haitian's range. There she is. Her dark lips tug into a smile, and she turns away from him again as she slips through a high-arched door that is barely ajar.

It is significantly quieter in the hall than in the ballroom. The sound is swallowed in a muffled puff of smoke. Someone has left the smoker's lounge open, and the hallway by the door has filled with acrid clouds. The bright red carpet is in sharp contrast to the Nouveau beige of the walls and ceiling. Hanging chandeliers glisten, and three Venetian glass hangings away she is strutting slowly down the hall. The back of her neck is bare with a dramatic white 'W' of powder that reminds him of Japanese geisha. Sylar falls into step next to her. She doesn't look at him. Near the end of the hall, she stops and steps around him into an open door. He follows her into the dark room. The lock snaps into place as the door swings shut behind them.

Compared to what both of them have grown to expect, the room is incredibly small. It is still a decent-sized room, though; five-star hotels really don't have any rooms that aren't. The decoration is minimalistic-a single queen bed, a small table, and two chairs. The table is dwarfed beneath a huge bouquet of stargazer lilies and asphodels. _Always mixed messages with you, Angela_, Sylar thinks to himself. The white flowers glow in the fluorescent ambience lights, as do the streaks in Claire's hair. He is looking down into her wild up-do when he feels the cold steel wrap around his wrist and hears the ratchet of the cuffs.

Her thoughts are white static and underneath he can catch a swift current, _give me this_. Her movements are agonizingly slow. She languously stretches all the way up his body, pressing him backward into the bed, and the full length of her slim form is against him. His hands knock back against the headboard and, quick as wits, she has slipped the other side of the cuffs through an opening in the design in the wood and around his other wrist. She sits up on her elbows against his chest, alleviating him of the pressure of her breasts before sitting up all the way and settling next to him on the bed.

She leans over ever so slowly again and plucks the mask from his forehead, reaching back with her other hand to untie the black ribbon of her own mask. He watches her black nails as she arranges the masks beneath the bouquet, facing one another. She leans up to turn on a wall sconce. In the golden light, he can see the raccoon make up and thick white powder. Her lips, more plum than black now, are pulled into a most unnaturally broad smile for her features. In the center of all this wild unfamiliarness, her bright green eyes are watching him, waiting.

"Fantasy or culture shock?" he asks her, smiling wryly. She hums, and her smile remains devilish. It has been a long time since he has genuinely felt any fear. Nearly a year ago he felt real fear _for_ her-a first in a long while. Now, he decides, there is something in that smile that bothers him just a little. "I thought I was waiting for a phone call," he tries again. A little voice inside whispers that he is bargaining with her. He smirks comfortably in her direction to hide how much he agrees. She leans up over him again, draping him in her scent and the smell of hair spray, and throws a leg over his hips, settling back.

"Pathetic," she hisses through dark lips. "Excuse me, miss?" His fine features curl upward in a sneer. "Always such a good boy, _Gabriel_," she whines cruelly. "What?" He barely manages to gasp it out as she arches against him. He realizes her hands have slipped into the folds of her red satin dress and come out with a thin black leather belt. Her silken hands ghost around his throat before tightening the strap. Claire wraps the thin belt twice around her left fist. "I said it's pathetic. You pretend to be vicious, skulk around and tear human beings to pieces in a tantrum, then run and cry to yourself about your aloneness. _Fuck you, Gabriel_," Claire's forearm strains violently against the thin belt to punctuate her words.

Sylar's face reddens. He tenses his neck muscles, strained eyes watching Claire's features, studying her responses to torturing him. Those plum lips pucker up and blow him an exasperated kiss as she loosens the strap and drops it carelessly, allowing the leather to dangle from his throat. "Not working for me either," she sighs again and stretches upward. Her tanned arms reach high and her muscles stretch, the heat of her center presses against his lower stomach. Again those dark nails capture his attention as they drag down her arm and dip inside her dress. Those delicate fingers come out with an incredibly large butcher knife for the small size of her waist.

That queer sensation is creeping up behind his eyes again. Sylar had quickly resigned himself to his new assessment of the world including his inability to see all variables, but this new aspect of Claire... He searches his previous perspective of her questioning how their experiences could have possibly led her to believe this course of action was appropriate. He searches her mind again: rushing water. "Looking around now, aren't you?" She smirks, waving the knife between them easily in two fingers. The stainless steel edge catches the golden glow of the sconce. "Can you hear it?" Her sweet voice has dropped to a whisper so he listens. The sound of the clock ticking.

"Where is it?" She murmurs. She places the knife in the center of the bed and Sylar wonders if his pre-associative ability is the only thing that implies to him that it represents a moral compass. Her tanned hands reach for his throat again. Through bleary eyes he watches her every move. He feels her undoing his bow tie before those black nails are weaving down his shirt, every button a slip of pearl parting his tuxedo. That eerie smile turns up at him again as her hands have reached the last of his buttons at the apex of her thighs.

Her satin skirt has ridden up and he is staring openly as her fingers graze the tops of her fishnet thigh highs, brush her inner thighs, and then trail up his stomach and chest. She is laying over him again, pressed together intimately, and the champagne on her breath is intoxicating. He realizes that they have both been sober for several minutes, but that does not help this to feel any less surreal. "Where is it, _Gabriel_?" She is intentionally using his name to wound him, and his ire finally rises. "Where is that clock?" She sighs against his throat. Invisible hands jerk her up and off of his chest.

Claire feels a pair of hands wrapped around her ribs and another holding her wrists just high enough to be uncomfortable. Claire's rotator cuffs stretch wide. The curve of her small shapely rear presses perfectly into his lap. "What happened?" He snarls impatiently. _What did he do to you?_ Is at the forefront of his mind. One sharp little fang is pinching her bottom lip. "Think you have it all figured out, don't you? That simply can't be true if you're asking me questions," she is smiling and writhing against the pressure of any place they touch, including his invisible hands. Sylar's frown is intense, his dark brows furrowed.

"I am aware that I am incapable of perceiving any variables outside my own cumulative knowledge. I experience no _a priori_." His tone is dark, threatening. Finally he just comes out and says what is pacing back and forth like a tiger caged in his mind, "what did he do to you?" She barks a laugh. Another little giggle pours out. "You must mean _Renee_," she gasps, working her hips. Hearing another man's name fall from her parted lips as she rocks against him sets his blood alight. Jealousy runs rampant. She laughs again, sweat trickling down her forehead. He shakes her violently with his mind, "**answer me, Claire**!"

Her lower lip rolls out in a full pout. That smile is still glittering in her mischevious green eyes. "Did he..?" Sylar cannot make words to describe the event that transpired between them-to ask if something like that occurred between her and that other man. "No, you did," she giggles again. "Claire," there is a warning in his tone. A shuddering breath passes through her, causing shivers. "I thought you wanted to have fun," she chastises. Those invisible hands snatch her down, crushing her against him. The aroma of scotch and champagne mix sweet and sharp in the centimeters between their lips. "Having _fun_ has always been low on my list of priorities," he growls in return.

"I believe _feast_ was usually at the top," she has adopted a rather sultry tone and her hips mimic the implication of it. Between Claire's narrow thighs there is hard evidence per se of his arousal but his brown eyes will not relent, as always. She sighs, laying her wild hair on his shoulder, pressing her cheek into his collarbone. Her left hand seeks the butcher knife, black nails spidering across the bed. "You were right about always acting with a purpose," she says, rising above him and brandishing the knife with both hands-very clear with her intentions. The empty air where so recently they were close is now a freezing gap.

With the barest flicker of an eyelash she is suspended in evidence of murder frenzy. Her teeth are bared at him again. She looks alien and strange-Sylar is almost tempted to laugh considering all the wild turns in their lives. Instead he says, "is this your solution? You're going to..._torture_ me." She presses her plum lips together again in a careful smile, "yes." His bedroom eyes are studying hers again, searching the fathomless emeralds for some indication of what brought them here. Correction, what brought _her_ here. He has actually been thinking about something not too far off from this for quite some time, but those are his fantasies and his fantasies have absolutely nothing to do with Claire Bennet. Oh, wait, Claire Bennet has nothing to do with his fantasies... This stinks of the dream again.

He takes a deep breath to confirm it. His head is filled with the scent of her arousal. Those eyes, the deep green of an underground pond at the moment, are waiting patiently for permission or annihilation. Her eyes and her body are not enough. He reaches out with waspish tiny fingers for the edges of her mind. Claire's mental voice is anguished and livid, _I see you baring your throat to all of them, __**Gabriel**__. Where's mine?_ Claire's slight form is trembling in more emotions than he ever thought possible at once. She's so impetuous and it's what he loves about her.

"I'll yield to the flood of your beauty," he fishes the poetry out of some other meaningless drivel floating about in his mind, but it suits. Cheesy, but all-purpose. It is an excellent punctuation. Her thighs squeeze his hips painfully, and she curls like a panther-striking down with the knife before he can change his mind again. She slides straight through the mythological seventh heart and the tip of it sticks against his spine. The flat of the blade blocks his air and he works his throat, suffocating. "Shall I lock up your tongue with the rest of the silver?" She _tsk-tsks_ him. He chokes on his answer.

The searing pain has reduced to a numb thickness in his throat. His body is trying to heal the wound around the knife, and her small hand wrapped firmly around the hilt wiggles the blade slightly. "I think you're enjoying this, you sick fuck," she giggles again. "Me?" The sudden splutter shoots a spray of red across her face and a mouthful follows down his chin. Claire's eyes widen. Her tanned elbow jerks with the force of removing the knife. "You're right," she is panting and her left hand is covered in his blood where it has flowed from the base of his throat to the duvet beneath and she has haphazardly placed one hand in it to support her weight.

"This was just for my pleasure and if I expect any...cooperation..." Her tone is solicitous, but she sits back on his hips. His bare chest is soaked from the knife wound, the light brushing of hair drying in the sticky-slick trail from the base of his throat down between her thighs. She drops the knife off the side of the bed and he hears it land on the floor, the sound padded by thick carpet. One hand covered in blood, the other with only a few streaks, she parodies her gesture from earlier and tickles herself just above her thigh highs. The wound has healed completely and any thought of squeezing a little more blood out just to give her a good show escapes his mind completely as he watches those perfect black nails skirting the issue.

His fascination is entire. The world, the party, Peter waiting for them somewhere has completely disappeared from his considerations. Claire's black nails wrap in her satin skirt. The skirt rides perceptibly higher. Sylar's eyes flash to her face and back down as she allows herself the tiniest of moans when the satin ghosts over her hip bones. There in his lap, clearly visible, her tiny black panties barely cover the mound hot against his erection. The sight draws an answering moan from his own desires. "Maybe that was too good," she breathes excitedly.

"I've got a cure," she growls. No comprehension truly dawns on him. The vision is more akin to his time as No One-je mais vu. The pressure of her body is intense as she leans down to retrieve the knife and in one smooth motion pins her dress with her left hand to her abdomen; her right hand disembowels herself with a jerk and smooth draw across the short distance of her lower belly. Hot entrails mix with the sticky mess already on his stomach. Horror overwhelms him for just a second-a wave of sensation rising from the _human_ within who does not understand how such terrifying events could ever be spectated-even less so experienced-and survived before he remembers that they are _special_. She'll be fine.

For a split second he seems correct. The reassurance that he has offered himself for this horrid display is logically sound. Claire's face has gone from red to gray. The groan that follows is decidedly **not** sexual. Her body is cold atop his. Up until this point there was no need to worry. Claire could pin him, tie him, chain him-whatever she liked. Despite not having omniscience (a huge blow to his ego) he still possessed incredible incontrovertible power. The hand cuffs jangle impotently. He does not struggle as violently as he could, afraid of dumping her in the floor.

Thirty long seconds turn into sixty, ninety. His heart pounds painfully in his chest. Sylar's shaking form is coated in slick sweat and sticky diluted blood. His shoulders scream from the pressure. Quite suddenly it all seems less. She warms against him slowly. Claire's waking groan is pained. The knife thuds to the floor once more, and the empty hand slides up the bed spread, his side, and presses her intestines back inside of her. "That son of a bitch," she snarls and he realizes that the Hatian has done it-on purpose, without Claire's consent. Her watery green eyes turn up to him and she offers him a real smile. The first he has seen this entire tryst.

He can only imagine how he must appear. The rage and terror that had enveloped him in those few incredibly short moments surely undid the years of careful poise. It is obvious because of that simple, sweet smile she is giving him. Though the terror has not worn off, his body is not fatigued or strung tight. He watches her, in perfect health as he is, with huge brown eyes. "That's better," she says. His blood is smeared all over her face from his struggles, but she ignores it altogether. Claire's smiling face leans forward, her body though petite the quintessential feminine form as it slides against his and she places a single firm kiss just under the slope of his jaw.

No, there is no way that she couldn't have not known that was going to happen. Unless the Haitian has been spying the entire time... It is too much to contemplate with Claire's warm form pressed against him so enticingly in so many ways. He can't allow such a treacherous performance to go unrewarded. Sylar snaps his fingers and the thin black mesh covering the warmest parts of Claire disintegrate into so much dust between her sticky thighs. She moans against his throat as her most intimates flood with the pleasure of just his tuxedo trousers guarding their sexes from one another. The heat that had swept from the room so suddenly returns with full force.

With her face buried in his neck, one hand worms its way between them to her center and the other snakes into his hair at the base of his skull. Claire's petite peach digits twine and tug in his hair mercilessly. The very sound of her fingers sliding through her lower lips sets his skin aflush. Even though his neck experiences no ache he leans his head back and closes his eyes, his deep inhalation allows him no respite from this merciless onslaught however. Her perfect ever-sharp teeth nip at his jugular and the flesh near as she arches against her hand and his hips. Her monstrous black shoes dig into the meat of his calves. That sweet little voice cries out and Sylar's entire body gives a powerful twitch as their skin sliding against one another in so few places it seems suddenly pours in an unwinding cascade her orgasm straight through him.

The blonde sighs and huffs in his ear, still wantonly thrusting. God, if she had just let him see her face as she came... Truthfully, Sylar is too amazed to move or take control. His imagination has been severely stunted for so long with an overload of knowledge that he has become incapicitated with such an unforseen venture. How to conquer Claire Bennet if her goal is to conquer him? So he remains motionless, frozen and panting from the small blonde's exertions. How to get the truth from her? Sylar could clearly see which key this lock was aiming for, and he was unable to claim in any direction whether or not he could allow this to happen as she wanted it. His words crawl back to him from the night Peter saved his life and Claire took the swan dive off the ferris wheel, "_Give Claire what she wants._"

So he remains cuffed and mostly passive, searching for his voice within these acts of un-reason. Claire absolves him of some of the pressure by lifting herself off of him. She stalks on shaky legs to the adjacent bathroom, flicking the light on. He watches as she takes one of the cloths and applies cold water to her neck and face, cleaning away the blood. The long pause allows Sylar to catch his breath. His chest is cold and the dried blood feels as though it is pinching his skin. She sighs again loudly.

When she finally turns to him her face is clean of the white powder and blood, but the dark raccoon eyes remain. Those eyes like fresh green leaves are studying him unabashedly. Claire's mind openly projects to him his image: unbuttoned white shirt stained in blood, chest alike, his thick dark hair is tousled immeasurably and he appears thoroughly debauched despite his unsatisfied state. Those previous emotions well to the surface in her again and he reads them clearly on her face. There is anger, restraint, yearning, any fear that she has is deep below the maelstrom of passions warring within her. She says at the exact moment she thinks, "_It will have to do_." Apparently her satisfaction with his sexual frustration has won out over her anger that he does not appear quite _murdered_ enough.

It gives him a great thrill to hear such truth straight from her thoughts. It is not something he encounters often in his social circles. Especially since all of his social circles now include Noah Bennet and Angela Petrelli. At work, home, and in public he just couldn't seem to escape either one of them. "Well, I had _fun_ regardless," she tells him with a cocked eyebrow. That mischeivous smile has returned though it is not quite as broad-somewhat sated almost. "Catch you around, hon," she says. Those clawed heels stalk out the door carrying Claire with his blood still smeared across her breasts and up to one ear with them. Sylar's head falls back on the pillows beneath him. He sucks in a long and much needed breath.

Telekinetically the lock clicks open on the hand cuffs. He slips them into his trouser pocket. Sylar stumbles on rubbery legs into the bathroom. He leaves a bloody streak of a hand print across the pristine white from the puddle he sat up in. He glares at himself in the mirror, that same bloody hand winding in his hair. Claire's inner sight of him, restrained at her whim and suffering under the same-it was more than that. Her eyes had skimmed up his bare chest, but caught again and again on his deep brown eyes boring into her. His hand on the counter senses the shiver that those eyes had caused while she cleansed her face.

Above all of the brimming uncertainty one impression rings true. He is desperate to feel the way he did when seeing himself through Claire's eyes. She found him monstrous, dark, and ever so enticing. It was romantic and narcissistic. He _loved_ it. Sylar the legend. The dark and brooding legacy to a girl who knew his every insinuation. Oh, it was devious. Who could have contrived it? The Haitian, that was obvious. Noah Bennet-no, he would kill Sylar himself before allowing his daughter to seduce him. This fairly reeks of Angela. In the mirror his eyes are wild, but Gabriel's cupid's bow smile still curves his lips. He turns the water to scalding and begins to wash the blood from his visible extremities.

He stands between the bathroom and the end of the queen bed breathing quietly. Their masks sit framing the vase of the extravagant bouquet. The duvet is obviously ruined despite its champagne coloring. Claire scents hang heavy in the air. The smells tumble over one another-her shampoo, hair spray, champagne, arousal. Under all of Claire is the smell of himself and his blood. Again he catches a glimpse of her perceptions of catching the same sensations on her way out. A cusp has been reached and surpassed in this room. No questions were answered.

Relations have changed in a rather unsubtle fashion and yet no new definition has been assigned. He re-ties his mask and snatches hers up from the table, unwilling to admit to himself the uncertain fear that grips him upon his return to a masquerade where all the key players are sinister and yet utterly entwined with himself and somehow at his beck and call though in no way under his control. It gives him a shudder as he steps into the smoke filled hallway.

He spends two hours trying to catch her. Sylar prides himself on commitment to a game of cat and mouse. He even feels indemning and endearing fondness for the back and forth between himself and Noah Bennet over the years. This is ever so much more insidious and clever than anything that has ever transpired before. In less than fifteen minutes he is drunk again, and barely glimpses the blonde through the crowd before turning around to find that both his scotch glass and her mask have disappeared from the nearby bannister he had placed them upon. The next time he sees her she is wearing her Bride of Frankenstein disguise en totale and those gorgeous plum lips are kissing his scotch glass. His world tilts unreasonably.

He sees smears of Angela Petrelli and Peter talking to him. Sees the Haitian and Claire giggling arm in arm through a crowd. Wild feathers and glittering flashes interrupt his perceptions from all sides. Eventually he concludes that this social event is a misconstrued labyrinth meant to antagonize him. Probably designed by Angela and perpetuated by the Haitian and Claire. Peter didn't seem to be aware, and for that he was grateful. He didn't think he could stand any further manipulations from those dear to him. Dear to him? Sylar stirs these thoughts. _What is happening here?_

At the two hour mark he flees. The masquerade is not scheduled to be over for another hour and a half, but he stands out near the awning and staunchly accepts the cigarette a valet offers him. He must look _that_ bad if it inspires generosity in strangers. Especially since his tux cost as much as the kid's whole year's salary. The cigarette is long gone and he has obfuscated his existence into the shrubbery around the entrance playing his waiting game. He hears her stumbling into the open foyer hall, her young companions chattering amicably.

"I'm just saying, if you gave him a chance-" Micah's voice has deepened in the last several years, but still holds a timbre of youth not having quite developed fully yet. A sharp feminine voice interjects, "no one wants to hear from his biggest fan right now, _Micah_. He's still an uber creep." It brings a slanted smile to his shadowed face to recognize Mollie Walker's young lady's vocal cords. "Guys, _really_," Claire giggles drunkenly. "You know he's still a psycho," Mollie warns reproachfully. "Everyone is a little crazy," Micah bites back. "Like murder your fucking parents crazy?" Mollie return volleys. "_Language_," Claire intones vacantly. _Did she tell them about our little...incident?_

"It's just..." Micah pauses, searching for words. "He's lonely. At the office, I can tell more than ever. He's so involved with everything, but so removed from everyone..." Micah drifts off. Everywhere-even at work, even his seeming friends-they all were always spying on him. Checking to make sure he wasn't back sliding and not that he wasn't suffering. _What is the difference_, he supposes. Noah Bennet was watching him from hidden cameras in his home years ago. Why not now? Well, probably because he was living with Peter Petrelli. The world was already watching the Petrellis. He was just going to have to adapt. Claire's mind was calling to him. Trilling over the sound of Mollie Walker's cutting response of, "who cares how Gray feels as long as he does his job."

_Sy-lar... Sy-lar..._ she sing-songs. Sylar summons Parkman's persuasions and tells the three of them,"_say your goodbyes_." Terror seeps from the young woman's pores and she stammers over an impromptu goodbye to Claire. It is quite the contrast to Micah's excited and yet calm collected, "see you, Claire." Claire's eyes narrow at the teenagers' retreating backs as they nearly run back into the ballroom fray. Sylar smirks from the bushes out front. Claire performs her amazing balancing act in her lobster claw heels up the long hall of plush carpet toward the entrance. The last thirty feet are perhaps the longest few seconds of her life.

The valet has already brought her bike up front and Sylar has told him and his companion, "_**work elsewhere**_." For the time being giving them slight isolation on an otherwise occupied street. Sylar's long, lean shadow is standing near studying the long, hideous scrape in the black on black paint of her ducati. He raises a dark brow at her and takes a long drag off another procured cigarette. "What's that for?" She asks, nodding towards his smoke. _Of all the things to ask_. He is truly baffled. "Try everything once," he answers sagely, hitting it again. She reaches out her black nails and he obliges, handing it over.

Claire's lips wrap around the menthol and she inhales. "Woooo, sharp," she gasps. He laughs a little, blowing smoke out his nose. "It's a shame about your bike," he says. "It's not a shame I had to re-grow my left leg from the thigh down? Tore my knee straight off," the Texan drifts out in her accent for the first time in years it seems to him. "What happened?" His surprise was evident. She sucks at the cigarette again, squinting at him through trails of smoke. "Someone scared the hell out of me at 110 on a back road between Andrews and Big Spring in mid-June," she stated flatly. _Oh..._

He had long ago removed his mask again, and he rubs his eyes with one hand. "I had reason to believe you were dead," Sylar says. Claire pushes her own mask up on her forehead, green eyes dark in the street lights and the brilliance of the interior of the building behind her. She purses her lips and looks about to tease him again, but instead she sighs and averts her eyes. "What do you want, honey? I've had a long night..." The exasperation in her tone isn't quite as quelling as the converse excitement at her using a pet name for him-despite it being a common Texan misnomer. "I want a better reward for my efforts," he answers, hoping to impart some of the dark passion he has been titillated with.

"Alright," she sighs again and flicks the cigarette off to whereabouts unknown. "But just one," she promises. She leans forward in those ridiculously tall shoes and presses her front against him. The swell of her breasts rests comfortably against his chest and her silken arms wrap around his neck. He allows his arms to automatically encircle her once-again amazingly small waist. Scotch and champagne mix with menthol and she opens her impossibly soft mouth against his gentle probings. Her tongue is pliant and warm.

Claire moans into his mouth as he invades her mind and senses, searching for truth. _Yes, the Haitian. You need guidance. You think you know everything. Aptitude is not understanding. You grasp at what my brother has made a life-long walking stick shaped to his hand of._ Everyone else is out. _Her brother?_ Had Claire and the Haitian really grown so close? He searches his mind for her memories, but it was a shadow within a dream now. How much did she remember about him? "_Why can't you just kiss me!_" She screams mentally in irritation.

She pushes them apart with a hand to his face-not quite a slap, but something beyond an impolite push. The blonde huffs again dissatisfiedly and mounts her bike. Her red satin dress settles perfectly around the trim leather seat. It was foolish to be so reproachful of the questions she asked when she was practically escaping and he had yet to clarify _anything_. "Claire, wait!" His desperation has clung to base of his mind once more and his haunted chocolate eyes study her-attempting to discern precisely the correct question to unwind this ravelled mess.

"What are we?" he vacillates. It is the best he could do on short notice-with too much to encompass in such a short time with no ammo, as it were. She smirks at him, sitting up. "Well," she drawls, "you're something like my father, though you are certainly really _not_. I am most definitely _not_ your mother." Her eyes are shrewd but soften as she continues, "We're not bosom companions, nor friends. Star-crossed certainly, but lovers, no. Do you have to define everything?" Her youth is apparent on her apple-shaped face, but her smirk is beguilingly knowing. "Call me?" he implores exaggeratedly thickly. "Promise," she shoots over the curve of one shoulder, firing the bike to life.

Coming soon! Part 3: Her Name Is What It Means!


	3. Her Name Is What It Means

Her Name Is What It Means

No obfuscation is required as he is a shadow in the pitch black night already. It is a new moon and clouded, so there are no twinkling stars. He could rise higher, the clouds below his feet, but he wants to see it land-not to find it or anything-mostly to make sure he doesn't kill anyone with a projectile from the sky. Really, it's that pragmatic. It's not sentiment. He traces the perfect glass convex. Black and white-"SYLAR" disappears and reappears beneath an uncalloused padded digit. Ever attached to this flesh... he doesn't need it (the watch, he means). His flesh... his flesh a woman finally named for him, again. His name. A woman who says she is not his mother...

He hears Claire's voice in his dreams reciting Allen Ginsberg poems to him but only one line echoes over and over, "...**who threw their watches off the roof to cast their ballot with eternity outside of time**." She repeats it again. He wonders if Claire knows it is Allen Ginsberg. Well, she has to if she is reading it, doesn't she? _Honey, you're over-analyzing again. Wake up._ It's not time. The watch. He wasn't done. It has already happened, but he feels the urgent desire to see it-to feel it again. Nearly a century old, with its fine engravings and intricate innards, cogs meticulously align to move against one another. Perfect time. It slips free of his soft long hands like a pistol thrown in the ocean. He hears it shatter, hundreds of feet below against the concrete... a waste but a small price to pay.

He could repair it in a second, applying heat and telekinetic manipulation of matter, but Claire's voice is speaking to him again so he doesn't need it. "Every day is in eternity," she hums monotonously through the sky, reverberations of her silken voice consuming his mind. "Holding infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour," her sultry tones beguile the lonely view. An incessant buzzing interrupts his meditation. His acute hearing turns the buzzing into an irritating high-pitched vibration of a plastic cell phone against high-gloss cherrywood. Sylar's hand rises to his face immediately-trying to press out the alternate perception. His phone screen lights up from the small bedside table, "**1 MISSED CALL**,"and his blood warms instantly because right below is her name. She called.

The door bell rings-once, twice. By the fourth impatient ring, Sylar is up and moving toward the front door. The warm scent of outside is chasing in through open windows, but drifting from under the door is that natural parfumed sweetness of young, fresh and golden, "_**Claire**_." He knows he is right, but can't help just one peek-to look at her for just a second without her increasingly eccentric behavior hanging between them. He catches the underlying scent of cordite a second too late. He reaches out for Claire's mind, streaking through the shadow at the peephole. "**Bang.**" Perfect pink pout split askew by one fang again, and then the grin. His world goes black.

Smell is the first sensation to drift through the black, and there is a pungent unnatural odor, Pinot Noir, and Claire au naturale. Peter's voice is piercing from the hallway, "_Christ!_ What happened in here?" Claire laughs in reponse. "Claire? Did you do this?" Peter's voice comes nearer, presumably he is hovering outside of the room. "What's going on?" Much closer. Claire's laughter is like the tinkling of little bells. There is a long pause. "Are you going to interfere?" Her voice is low, and oddly reminiscent of the tone he often used with his prey.

"_What are you getting out of this?_" She is suddenly on guard. All violent pique of interest and defensiveness-regarding _him_, no less. "What are you getting out of it, Claire?" Peter's answer is cutting, and Sylar can just picture the jut of Peter's firm jaw and the righteously indignant incline of his head. "You don't _really_ want to know-being my dear uncle and all, do you?" She giggles a little. "OH! Oh, good_ God_, Claire! You're a young lady! A young lady!" Peter shouts, his footsteps retreating. His tone is angry, but amused at the same time. Sylar wishes he had caught the thought but, being barely at the bleeding end of conscious, all the voluntary action he manages is a choked chuckle from the floor.

As the splitting pain in his head begins to recede somewhat, his hearing cuts back in. Claire is reciting to him, "...**divine power bestowed in different ways on men but 'darkness' lay ahead. Life is frail, unsubstantial-man like a shadow in a dream..." **The book snaps closed when he sits up abruptly and whips around. In one hand is a hardcover of Bowra's _The Greek Experience—_bloody hand print apparent—and, in the other, a familiar golden 9mm. Out of her mouth hangs a thinly twisted cigar. "What if you had-" he starts angrily and she cuts him off with a wry grin, "-gotten lucky?" The bloody book lands heavy on his comforter, and he notices more streaking his bedding.

She pulls several times on her pungent cigar and takes a glass of wine from the bedside table with cigar-laced fingers. "Come make me sorry," she purrs with open arms. Sylar sits up on his knees. One hand searches his hair and head-fully formed but definitely not clean. His right hand comes back slicked with blood. "I didn't think so," she says, sliding off the bed and draining her glass of wine before replacing it on the table. She brings her twisted stinking cigar back to her lips and inhales deeply.

In her Converse sneakers Claire's perky (and quite obviously bra-less) breasts are exactly in his line of sight with him on his knees. She brandishes the golden Glock in her left hand and raises her eyebrows, blowing smoke in his face. "Is that... marijuana?" he finally manages after a long confused moment. "Got you good, didn't I?" she laughs openly at him, sucking at her blunt. "Maybe you ought to sit back down." Her darkly tanned hand snakes under his armpit, and she hauls him up roughly-the limb suddenly a tiny vice on his upper arm-shoving him into her warm seat on the bed in the center of several bloody streaks. "Try some of this," she offers him the cigar and he takes it, puffing like a cigarette. The smoke gets in his eyes, and he coughs hard. "Wh-what are you doing here, Claire?" he coughs through tears.

"I'm here for the wedding, dumbass," she gestures towards her duffle next to his bedroom door. He tries the cigar again, drawing long and slow just like she had been doing. "No, I mean what are you doing blowing my brains out all over the living room?" his composure returning. She leans to the right slowly. Her thoughts are a dull hum. Her right hand takes the bottle of recently popped wine by the thin neck, reaching past the empty glass. His senses tickle. He's seen this ploy before. He is too slow once more however, and the golden barrel trails up his forearm-pressing into the crook of his elbow. She squeezes the trigger. Her smile is broad, "I hear you catching on."

She tut-tuts at the blood spray all over the book shelves lining his walls, his bedside table, and bed spread. "Clean this up," she tells him airily, watching him with narrowed emeralds. The dark-haired man hisses through his pain, but instantly the blood vanishes from the room-manipulated, disintegrated, gone. His arm has begun to reform, and it climbs painfully down toward making a new hand. His amputated limb is graying on the floor next to the bed, still twitching. "I am not going to play anymore if you don't start telling me what is going on," he barks angrily. There is a long pause between them. "**One more gun shot, and I am coming in there!**" Peter hollers from down the hall.

Sylar sucks in a harsh breath, watching tiny nubs fill out from his upraised fresh appendage. "Don't," he calls weakly. He clears his throat, "It's alright, Pete. We're good." He raises his right hand, shaky and blood-smeared, to his face to pull from the cigar again. "You still didn't answer my question, Claire," he says. She watches him steadily, tipping back the wine. The slow roll of her golden throat is entrancing. Her hair is much longer than the last few times they met, and it is barely blonde anymore. Her dark tanned skin makes it so much brighter buttercup yellow with a few streaks of mild wheat, and it is in a messy knot at the back of her head and trailing down her spine. She is a much wilder creature than he has ever known her to be, now.

That _college experience_ that he teased her about a few years ago springs to mind as she stands before him, imbibing, in her dark tight jeans and heather gray Henley. She is lacking make-up and yet still gloriously perfect. She offers him the bottle, and they trade off. "Can we keep our hands to ourselves long enough to have a conversation?" She smirks, and he cocks one eyebrow high in response. "Okay, you've been perfectly gentlemanly," she concedes, sidling up next to him and settling on the bed. "I'll just have to keep _myself_ in check." She digs her sneakered heels into the mattress and wraps her arms around her knees, bowing her back. "Where do you want me to start?" she asks. Her eyes have gone cold.

Sylar throws his head back, swallowing greedily from the wine. The smoke tendril drifting from the cigar in Claire's pinched fingers catches his attention, and they sit in silence with all eternity stretched out between them. "How many times do I have to ask you what happened to you?" he finally says quietly. She presses the cigar to her lips quickly, puffing and looking away pretending to study the doorway. She offers it up to him and he shakes his head, watching her profile. "I already told you-**you did**," she huffs. Sylar grits his teeth and measures his words carefully, "Yes, you did, but you weren't like this before. Something _else_ has happened."

Claire's profile is deathly still for a long moment, and his brown eyes trail to the gun still wrapped tightly in her hand. She brings the cigar up to her mouth slow, pulling with closed eyes, then she sits up on one knee and presses the hot cherry to his right temple-crushing the fire hot bud with her thumb into the smooth curve of bone. Her teeth are gritted. She seethes against his cheek, "**Someone** _finally_ took me under their wing, and his _answer_ was to promise that he could make it so that I could **understand everything**. _Oh, did he_. Now I think I trust _you_ more than him. Which might have been his plan all along..." Somewhere in this tirade the petite blonde has nearly climbed on top of him, and her hand is fisted in his black tee shirt.

He realizes the barrel of the gun is pressed into the meat of his shoulder joint at exactly the second the weight of her statement registers to him. She squeezes the trigger again. The pain of his clavicle blowing out is excruciating, and he lets out a shout involuntarily. "**Gabriel**!" Peter shouts back. "We're fine!" Claire calls cheerily. He looks up into the heart-shaped face above him. Her eyes are closed, a delicate fan of lashes over a large smile. Her chest rises and falls in huge breaths, swallowing his scent. "See why no conversation?" she whispers. "Sometimes I forget I'm still awake; I fuck up and say these things out loud."

After almost three centuries of thought on the matter, he allows himself the freedom to reach out to her. His slender fingers curve over her shoulders and he gently presses her down to the bed. Her face is flushed-and not from the wine and drugs-and she is supple beneath him, cooperative even. He scoots back across the bed on his rear, pushing with bare feet. He reaches his full arm's length out to her, wine bottle hanging precariously from the end. "The Haitian," his utterance is laced with malice. "_Renee_," she corrects. "My brother," she mutters, eyes distant again. "He did this to you?" Sylar's incredulous tone is naive in Claire's humble opinion, and she rolls her eyes. "He did this to _us_," she corrects again. "Why?" It is such a simple question, and yet the answer complex beyond imagining.

Claire's sigh is resigned, and she closes her eyes. Her blonde hair frames her face against his sepia-toned bed set in a neon yellow halo. "Because we are my father's children... all three of us. Because he said it could _cure_ us-if you can believe that. Make you what you need to be and me what I need to be," her tone has dropped from cruel to merely snide. "You don't think it did?" he asks quietly. "I was so crazy I couldn't even talk to you that first year-couldn't get near you," she scoffs. Sylar considers her statement. Yes, she had been particularly... crazy. That was a good way to put it. "Why?" he asks again instead of sharing his ponderings. Her green eyes are watching him narrowed once more, her annoyance apparent.

"Why do you think? All that we shared... our whole lives, and then I had to re-live everything you did to me and how you felt while you were doing it, you sick fuck. All that _**JOY**_ at my expense. At the expense of the _lives_ of my loved ones..." There are tears poised on her sunned lashes, but they tremble without falling. "...and I still want you," she says it quietly, but the pressure of the statement is killing to them both. "And I still want to hurt you," she says with more force, the jewels of her eyes hidden again. Sylar smirks on his side of the bed. Claire has been so normal at work and at social events; all of his spying tells him so. There is a tickle deep in his black little soul that his existence drives her _mad_. Just him. She has hidden this away from the rest of the world, and it is just their dark little secret-her madness for him.

"Why did you take Angela from me?" he asks, digging up more questions. "Is that what I did?" she asks haughtily. "I was under the impression that you had no intention of recovering from her tendency to manipulate, so I removed the compunction," she continues derisively. Sylar's smile is abridged with thought, "I was learning to cope." She deadpans right back, "I deal better." So she was worried he would lose it and kill her grandmother. "What about Noah?" he presses while the avenues are open. Claire takes a deep breath and a small smile creeps over her face, "My father is just going to have to accept that he completed his mission finally. He made an immortal to accompany the natural-born." Sylar stills at the implication.

His dark brows furrow deeply into the center of his forehead. Noah had always been adamant about the amount of distance he felt the man should keep from his adopted daughter. Could it really have been a Company assignment? _Isn't everything with that guy?_ His thoughts answer for him. "All the lust... sort of takes the romance out of the issue for me," she says, bringing him out of himself. Even with her century in his dreamland, she is still far his junior, and he looks down into her ever-young face and feels a twinge-in his heart, not his loins, for once. They had shared their inner-most selves-inadvertantly, albeit-and she was looking for her soulmate. She was looking for the person in him looking back at the person in her-exactly like himself.

"If you get to know me..." he offers. "I see you building your life," she hisses. "Nice here with Peter, isn't it?" Her tone is dangerous and he is grateful not to have her accusing eyes staring up at him. "It is," he answers evenly. "They let you live the lie like you never did it, then?" she growls, her small fists are clenched. The empty wine bottle has rolled away off of the bed. "I spend every day doing everything I can to make my freedom worth it to them," he says. "What is so different now?" Malice drips from every word, ice gripping her. "No one is invincible," he answers. "So it's about self-preservation?" she dares. He laughs outright, and she twitches in her prone position. "No. No. It's about a woman. It always is," he is smirking again and she cranes her neck back to look up at him.

"What if I refuse?" That sultry, teasing tone has returned and she rolls onto her stomach, crawling toward him. "Well, we do have all of eternity for me to not live up to your standards," he drawls. Though his tone is light, the self-deprecating words strike something in her and she pauses, blowing an errant strand of wheat hair out of her face. "You know that you more than surpass my standards, _Gabriel_," she bites out the words. "Then why does it sound like an insult when you call me that," he fires back in his even way. "Because I love the Sylar in you," she says sweetly, and the gun is in her mouth and the back of her head gone before the words even have meaning to him.

He catches himself in a rising crouch and hovers, uncertain. Fear is gripping him again, but he can see the back of her head re-sealing the red gap in her pretty blonde hair so he takes a breath. Peter has appeared in the door and is gripping the frame like an anchor. "_What_ is going on in here?" he snaps irritatedly. Claire's brains are sprayed across Sylar's cheek and the headboard behind him. His dark eyes are wide and helpless. Claire groans face down. The gun is still in her hand and she pulls herself up to her elbows, pressing the balls of her thumbs into her eyes. "That's it," Peter snaps again, striding forward and snatching the golden weapon from her.

"Hey!" she protests. "No more," his jaw is set firm again. "I know..." he pauses, watching them watching him with wide eyes like children who have been caught playing doctor, "I know that there is something going on... with you two. I am getting married the day after tomorrow. Just," and here he waggles the gun at them, "no more of **this**, guys." Claire chases him into the hallway calling, _"Pet_-er!" She catches his shoulder and that smirk has come back. Sylar can't see it from the bed where he has re-settled on his knees in shock, but he recognizes the sound of it. "That would be mine," she tilts her head in the direction of the 9mm. They study one another-deep hazel and fathomless green. "No," Peter says.

"Privacy instead?" she says, offering up her pinky. Peter's twisted wry smile curls his mouth, "That's gross." He laughs and catches her little finger with his own. "You're going to leave me alone with her?" Sylar calls from the bed. Claire's brow quirks upward in the hall. "Don't worry, baby," she answers sweetly. "It will grow back." From the door to Peter's room she hears something that sounds like him choking on air, "You're not really going to?" Claire cackles wildly and slams Sylar's bedroom door behind her. For a long second they stay as they are-Claire's shoulders hunched, her hair wild and back pressed against his bedroom door, and Sylar kneeling on the bed waiting for wherever this heinous ride is heading next.

"Mess," she says again, her green eyes following the arc across the headboard. The blood vanishes again. Claire hums appreciatively and ponders, "What are you doing exactly when that happens?" Sylar's smile creeps back to his lax expression. Some of his character bleeds back into him. "I am segregating molecules and disintegrating them," he answers. Her expression is thoughtful, and she steps towards the nearest shelving to run the tips of her fingers over the spines of his books. "Yes, but what are you _doing_? What does it _feel_ like?" she asks. Sylar smirks and answers sarcastically, "I'm picturing the _Febreze_ commercial."

Her thoughts echo hollowly in the space between them. She is reading titles and author names slowly. Fear starts to creep up the back of his head, tickling his scalp. "But what does it _feel_ like?" her pale pink lips mumble. He ponders the question, clinging to his deathly stillness in the face of her impending wrath. "Like reading a book that I haven't even written yet. Sometimes it feels like a string-no, a line... a connection or thread—from myself to... whatever," his quiet voice is a gentle hum over the insistent metronome's agonizingly slow _tick_ **tock** she has tripped with a single outstretched finger. He looks down at his own extended digit that has caused so much trouble in his truthfully short life. "Sometimes it feels like a million threads tied to me in one place," he finishes just as quietly.

Her sleight feminine form has wandered close again following the floating wall shelves circumference. Sylar doesn't bother attempting to hide his staring. "I can smell your fear," she whispers. She continues studying the spines of several medical textbooks carefully, "Peter wants us to stop hurting each other." His breathing has matched the metronome's beat, and he notices that hers has as well. Her cheeks are flushed prettily again. "How is Angela?" _Practice your charm, Gabriel_. "Is she enjoying her new job at the Centre?" Claire laughs a little, slightly breathlessly. "She's getting a tan and has let her gray go. It's starting to blend in nice," her smile is benign. He is still hesistant to relax, despite the absense of a visible weapon.

The silence stretches out between them. It is not uncomfortable, but there is a sensation that neither of them could deny—the possibility that they could stand there forever, waiting for the other to make the first move. "_**Talk to me, Claire**_," he demands with all the persuasiveness within him. It is more than enough with Matt Parkman's power. Her tiny little fingers are still stretched against a book spine, and she has paused on one imparticular. It is the book within which he'd once studied lobotomy. "It went away," she finally answers despite his immediate demand. "At first, I could remember everything that you had read. All those years... a_ll those books_," her voice is dreamy and she turns eyes to him that are nearly black with loss.

She sighs loudly, "But now it has drained away. I can remember some of what they were about, but the _knowledge_ escapes me." He thinks deeply on this, pondering whether it was anything like the short time during the second eclipse was for him. He could still remember everything he had read, but the _understanding_ of a larger picture-a bigger world-escaped him. Maybe that was really why he had killed Elle. The idea that the world could be so much more than the fantasies of one broken mind, and her inability to conceptualize such an idea... Claire could understand these snapped and re-knotted strings tying all this strangeness together, even if she couldn't follow them.

Her flush is still apparent, but she comes back to herself for a moment to ask, "What's Peter doing?" Sylar listens with both his mind and his superb hearing. "Listening to his iPod and looking at old photos," he answers. There it is, that real smile. "What?" he asks her. "It's good. It's so... _normal_. That's exactly what you are supposed to do before your wedding," she laughs a little, quietly in the wake of the previous mood. He reaches out for her mind again because he doesn't know what else to do. All of the power he has, and yet he still cannot unravel the enigma that is this young woman.

Her thoughts are a jumble of images and sensations. Sylar's surprise cements his fear when she looks straight in his eyes and he feels _caught_ somehow. The images and feelings continue to coalesce in a strange collage that is simply _Claire_ under her clear words thought at him, _**"Touch me. Touch my skin and tell me you feel like I feel**_." Those eyes are watching him, and he suspects that he may never escape them again. His voice has turned husky, "Come here." The young blonde-so different now and yet so obviously very much herself-obeys without hesitation, moving toward him slowly with half-lidded lust-filled eyes.

Claire's white Converse sneakers step between his amputated arm and the empty wine bottle as she crawls up onto his huge California king-sized bed. The slightest shadow of cleavage is visible between her unfastened buttons. Those jewels of endless depth are hovering mere centimeters before him. Their breaths mingle-all rich wine and hemp halitosis. Her sweet scent still pervades through the poisons. "Are you afraid I am going to hurt you?" she whispers hotly against his mouth. "Yes," he knows it is truth, but the thought is so alien. It is not the pain he fears. No, that is expected and truthfully welcome. How else would Claire be capable of alleviating her guilt over being intimate with him? No, the fear is most definitely centered around themselves.

"Good," it is an epitaph delivered into his yearning mouth as she claims him. Her soft lips are parted as they press to his, and her small tongue snakes against the inside of his mouth gently, searching for his pleasures. This is much more intense than the brief interlude outside of Angela Petrelli's Halloween masquerade. This is out of the ballpark compared to anything that has transpired between them before, possibly barring their initial awareness of one another after he acquired her power viciously. Sylar has never been this open to her. Now would be the perfect time to rip him to shreds-and he knows it. The thought engineers the briefest of whimpers from his throat. Flesh on flesh reveals to him her awareness of his reasons, and she slides a toned thigh between his half-folded legs to rest against his inner knee, pressing him back further until he is propped on the headboard and pillows.

Her mouth falls to his again and again-warm, wet and inviting. Her hands have fisted in the blanket below him, pressing the pillow down with her full weight. Feeling daring, Claire nudges her hips forward and aligns their bodies flush. A gasp escapes into her mouth and he can't help bringing his hands to her jean-clad hips. Sylar feels a pang in his heart at her tiny waist. His hands are barely any further apart than they would be on his laptop keypad. Claire's narrow hips roll against him. Sylar tears his mouth away but allows his hands to slip behind her and up under her shirt.

"I bet I can _tell_ _you _how you're feeling," she purrs against his neck just beneath his ear. Sylar's bedroom eyes rove the hundreds of books covering his walls. No answers spring to mind to free him from this very volatile situation. She giggles and it vibrates his skin, "Like a young girl-weepy and **easy**." The frozen block around his heart melts, trickles down, and re-freezes in his gut. "I could tear you to pieces, Claire," he growls. The heat between them is insufferable, and his angry tone causes her to grind against him and nip his throat. He growls again, burying his hand in a tight fist within her hair. Her mouth opens in a perfect O. She does not appear distressed in the least. Her hands come up to his chest.

She hums and those eyes that have bore into his very soul slide closed, "But you won't." Her conviction is infallible. He waits for the other shoe to drop-the insult, the insinuation. Those sunned lashes are travelling back up ever so slowly and her breathless words are perfection embodied. "You can't afford to miss me any more than you already do," her words flutter between breaths. Sylar surprises himself yet again by tears springing to his eyes. _It's just a sting_, he tells himself. Indeed it does sting, like hell. He can feel the hard flush curving his cheek bones. _She's playing you like a fiddle_.

Despite his hand fisted in her hair, she pulls back and slaps him _hard_ across the face. He is too shocked to retaliate and stares back at her. Shrewd eyes are piercing him again and she growls, "I don't have to be able to read your mind, _Gabriel_. Your insecurities are written all over your stupid face! I know you now. _I know __**you**_; any interaction that may wither your demons is heretic heresay!" She pushes back to study him, and he allows his hand to slip from her silk flaxen hair. Firstly, he is flabbergasted that she would call_ him_ **stupid**. Secondly, it is true, isn't it? She knows everything about him all the way up to a year and a half ago. She knows his fractured heart and mind in and out. He obviously cannot say he knows her as well because the story she shared with him-the Claire he saw brushing her teeth, loving her father, living her life. She didn't act this way, not in the least.

Some whisper of an idea ghosts against the edge of his thoughts. "Claire," he has to take control of this situation, "how do _you feel_? Right now." Her green eyes have narrowed once more, and he considers whether or not he is going to have to restrain her in her response. She draws a deep breath and settles her hips back down against his, repositioning herself on his chest again. "There is a... **gremlin**. A creature... that is asleep while I walk around all pretty and nice, talking to important people-making friends, conducting business-but underneath all the time... whispering to me." Sylar feels like a first snow has settled around him. Claire lowers her head to his rapidly rising and falling chest, pressing an ear over his heart.

Her voice is a smooth alto accompanying the near-forgotten metronome which has lost some of its gusto in the long moments. "When I am alone though... when I am all alone, the whispers are so _loud_." Sylar swallows thickly in the stillness, "What do they say?" She chuckles with her face buried against him. "He tells me that there is no love lost between us. That it would be perfectly reasonable to slit your throat mid-coitus," she is whispering but he can hear her smile anyway. "He tells me that anything between us is a lie. I am going to end up like Elle... and Maya-betrayed and murdered." Almost inaudibly she finishes with, "He tells me we will annihilate one another." Her answers do nothing to placate his discomfort. They do, however, remove any residual doubt regarding her understanding of his insecurities.

He allows his smooth fingers the pleasure of making small circles on her lower back. She lets out a sigh and stretches comfortably against him, pressing their bodies together in all the right ways. His attempt to hide the moan it brings from him in her hair is foiled by the curl of her ear, and the sound of it causes her to buck against him. "Why are you here then, Claire?" he gasps out, electricity shooting through his heart and loins. It takes an extra breath for him to finish, "Tickling the sleeping dragon, as it were?" Claire's hands slide down his sides and catch the hem of his tee. In the most minute of pauses, he wonders what she could be doing until she slides both of their shirts up to the pit of their arms, hers hooked in her thumbs.

Claire's bare breasts, as tanned as the rest of her, glide silkenly against the hard planes of his chest wrapped in nearly as soft skin. "I guess I am the only one who feels this," she mocks, gasping. Her cheeks are the brightest red. "I mean, I know that I am perpetually in hormone hell, but you're kidding me if you think I am going to believe that you're not _suffering_ too," her voice is husky and she writhes against him suggestively, not quite thrusting but more of a slow roll of flesh against flesh that drives him wild. Their pebbled nipples slide across each other, and she keens quietly causing him to thrust, just once, in frustration. "I'm serious," he half growls and half gasps. "Tell me."

The blonde's shapely form slips up him, all silken gliding urgent desires setting him alight, and rests her hardened nipples just below his collarbone. Her round flushed face is right in front of him, green eyes glittering. Claire is visibly attempting to control her breathing and expression. Finally, she says with a serious face, "Because you're not _him_. I... I mean, I know that you are him and that you used to be him... except you were never him. I can't explain it. Some of it is true and some of it isn't. I've been so confused." Tears might have come to her eyes if she wasn't still so flushed and wanting.

Sylar's large hands come up to her face, his thumbs sliding along her cheeks. He cups her around the ears, "I am who I am, Claire. Everything that I have done, no one is responsible for but myself-" Her tone when she abruptly interrupts sets him on edge, "_No, it's not! It's mine!_" She gasps, and tears do come to her eyes. "See what I mean?" She whispers, "Crazy..." Her face hardens, "Crazy that I didn't keep stabbing with that butcher knife. What dumb bitch stops after one stick?" Claire presses the back of her hand against her mouth, staring at Sylar with wide eyes rimmed in new tears. She takes a steadying breath and tries again, "I know you are not him because you have proven it every time I've seen you, since this whole rotten mess started. Even before Renee did this to us, you were **never** like him."

"Please, just make it go away for a little while." Her lilting plea falls on ravagingly hot and willing ears. His delicate watchmaster's hands trail over her shoulders and down her exposed back, caressing with gently prodding fingertips as he brings her to his eager mouth. Claire mimicks her desired affections against his tongue, and it does amazing things to his libido. She slides against him wantonly, groaning in pleasure. "I can't," he tells her, barely breaking from her kiss. "Please," she begs. Every nerve in his body is on fire with the smell and feel of Claire. Her flesh begins to weave a desperate story to him, bringing back that long ago image.

His mind's eye suffers the repeated assault; his male thighs brushing against her as he pounds into her relentlessly. Claire's fantasies have the added bonus now of his memories of past lovers. Her sensual imaginings are bridled with him sliding into a woman's heat over and over again-sliding into her, and loving the feel of naked, soft tits in his hands. The images barrage him. Claire on her back, legs splayed, waiting for him. _**Please, please give me what I want. You said so**_. "No," he growls. Both share the rouging of cheeks, neck, and chest-the combined weight of their desires. She wheedles at him like the young girl driven mad in lust that she is, "Why not?"

He slides his chocolate eyes closed, steeling himself against the erotic mindset with which she is pressuring him. "I know you want something, Claire, and I am not sure, but I think you think that we are trading somehow... for this. I'll give you what you want-just give me a chance to consent first," he tries to keep his trademark tone but, even with his eyes closed, the heat of her body is nearly unbearable. Her lithe movements have stilled, and he peeks one eye open just a crack. Her flushed face is smiling down at him, "Really?" Those wide green eyes are more than a little excited. "Of course, really!" he barks hoarsely. "Do you really think I would have just let everything else happen like it did if I wasn't going to say yes to you?" She tilts her head to the side thoughtfully, and he wonders if it is her blonde showing slightly.

Sylar smirks, back in control. "As a matter of fact," he is growling again, but the tone is different, playful, "let's return to this order of business later. I can do you one better than your fantasies." In a second with a simple flex he has flipped them, and she is on bottom and pressed into his bed with all the weight of him. His left thigh slides between her legs, and she immediately grinds down against him, moaning loudly. Her green eyes are alight, and a huge grin has spread across her face. "Better?" she gasps. He lets out a long quiet shush against the flush of her throat, nipping and kissing the exposed flesh there. Claire presses against his taut thigh with the her heat-holding him locked there between her legs.

He shimmies free easily by sliding distracting hands up her tanned sides to circle the sensitive flesh around the mounds of her breasts. Face to face with Claire's perfect tits, it is difficult to continue to drag his short blunt nails teasingly across her sensitive skin as the urge to grab a piece and _squeeze_ consumes him. Sylar's mouth latches on to a tantalizingly pink little bud, kissing and licking alternately. She is writhing against him again. Her right leg, not trapped between his knees as her left leg is, rises in an attempt to wrap around his waist as she struggles with the sensations. Her gasping and crying out have made him painfully hard, and he reaches between them to give himself a merciless squeeze for mild relief. The feel of his hand dissuading himself (or merely groping, in Claire's opinion) shoots electricity through her already soaking sex again.

That helpful hand slides up her leg and settles on her hip. The other hand travels away from the breast it was gently kneading to the waist of her jeans to join its companion. With his mouth still frenching her nipple in a delicious mixture of sensations, she completely misses the button of her jeans snapping open. The zipper slides down nearly silently, compared to the amount gasping and moaning between the two of them. Sylar pulls at her sensitive flesh with his mouth, pinkened nipple sliding free through his pursed lips to her cries. His fingers slide into the waistband of her jeans and begin the slow descent down, taking her panties with them. The immediate smell of her arousal is nearly too much, and he presses his face against her inner knee, eyes closed and nostrils flared.

The stubble there is as stimulating as anything else, and Claire sighs impatiently while he collects himself. His hands trace small circles from behind her knees down the backs of her thighs, travelling toward her arse steadily. Sylar nips and kisses down her thigh. His hands ghost over her hips as he approaches her center-intentionally bringing the pressure to a scandalous peak. She is whining and twisting beneath him, desperately seeking anything he might provide to alleviate her discomfort. Sylar snakes his tongue out and drags it deftly up her labia, flicking her clit smoothly then lathing it as his hands slide up over her soft tits, dragging across her so-sensitive nipples. "God, you're sweet, Claire," he breathes against her hot swollen sex. She moans greedily in answer.

It doesn't take long for her over-stimulated darkly tanned frame to convulse in exquisite pleasure, "**Sy**... _**Sy-Sylar**_!" The sound of her rockets to his cock. Her wetness surges to his undulating tongue, and she thrusts her chest into his gentle hands. Claire's small hands find their way to his hair finally, fingers threading through dark locks repeatedly as she rides her joy. He purrs against her clit causing her to quiver and gives a last kiss before pulling his shirt over his head one handed to wipe his face, discarding it off the bed. He rises above her again, and a tingle shoots through Claire at the sight; even better than she imagined with his burning brown eyes, chiselled musculature, and shadowed smirk.

He crashes to the bed behind her, giving an exaggerated huff and burying his face in her half undone hair. She is panting and less than a fourth-dressed. Perfect. Her hand grasps at his still prevalent erection, and he groans thickly into her hair. "You're not done," she breathes. He grins behind his blonde veil, pressing against her hand slowly as she trails across him, "No, but Peter is livid." The hand he had slung lazily around her waist has travelled upward to cup the firm rise of her chest. Claire strokes him gingerly, light but persuasive, "What do you want to do?" The shower kicks on in the adjunct private bath, "Prep for dinner."

He slides down her body, enjoying every inch of skin on skin, and slinks off the bed. Making to drop his slacks as he reaches the bathroom door he throws a glance over his shoulder. Claire is still laid out, flushed and flawless. Her naked legs are spread, one hanging off the side of his bed, labia visibly pink and swollen amidst blonde curls. Yes, perfect. He drops his slacks and saunters into the bathroom smirking. He has already stepped into the shower and left the glass door open awaiting her. She hesitates, shirt sleeve wrapped around one hand brought to her mouth; fulfilling another one of his fantasies with the sight of her standing nearly naked staring at him-full, pert breasts and blonde pubes, unstoppable curves from ankles to knees to hips.

Her eyes have darkened again, watching the narrow jut of his hips and lower between. She studies his chest and abdomen before coming back again to the erection, proudly sprung from his own dark thatch. The hot water pours scalding over him, wetting him down. His skilled hands peruse his own member. "I thought you were offering a hand," his smirk is wry and he adopts a mock sultry hurt tone, "or was that just a round of applause?" The flush that had chased to just her cheeks runs back down her chest again, and she throws her own shirt over her head behind her.

The hot water trickling over Claire's rosy tits is enough to drive him back to her skin, and he leans in to capture her mouth. One hand reaches up to cup her full chest again as he handles himself expertly. She moans, wrapping her arms around his neck and pushing into him. Her warm, water-slicked body is miraculous on his skin. The miracle is really that she is here at all, and his insecurities surge in the surreality. She sighs into his lips, her right hand traverses his wet chest, down his abdomen and joins his efforts. That sting has returned to his eyes, and he finds himself thrusting wantonly into her hand. The hand not firmly attached to her breast wraps in her messy hair and he presses his forehead to hers, eyes closed. He gasps breathlessly when he comes in her hand with teeth clenched, "_Claire_."

The kisses come pouring out of him, small pecks and drawn-out massages locked away for longer than he would care to admit. His pulls his hands gently through her tangled hair, smoothing and wetting it carefully to clean out the blood. "You're going to have to stop that," she moans against his chest, "or your plan to wait isn't going to happen." The curve of his barely waning erection slides against her taut stomach, and she rubs herself against him, head to toe. He hums against her lips appreciatively. _You're not going to let me_-the thought words are accompanied by the overwhelming sensation of an imagined Claire pushing him to the shower floor and mounting his cock, thrusting down on him determinedly.

He snorts into her mouth. His pearly white grin is feral, "Going to rape me if I'm even slightly reluctant? Claire!" Her bright laughter echoes off the bathroom walls, "You can't rape the willing, and I _seriously doubt_ that you would be able to convince _anyone_ that you were unwilling." Unspoken between them is the understanding that her father would murder him for merely raising the idea, much less the issue. "Never," his grin has turned boyish. Sylar dips his head to capture her mouth again with his own. "Okay, okay," her dark tanned hands press against his muscled chest, "dinner. We have to get ready for dinner." She slips out the glass shower door.

He can't help it. He isn't ready to surrender yet to the outside world. That irrepressible grin locked in place-something between a breeze and gentle stroke of a caress snakes up Claire's body, raising all her fine little hairs. She is perfectly dry. Her white-wheat hair curls prettily from all the way down to her rear up to around her ears. Her quiet gasp that should be barely audible is a symphony down his spine and through his sensitized flesh. She presents him with her picturesque profile by half-turning to leer at him with heavy-lidded emeralds. Her thoughts still push the sentiment that he could simply press their two bodies together. She is taunting him with the idea of his hard thighs and even harder cock between her legs as he presses her upper body into his bed. He groans loudly even as he switches off the water.

Sylar tries to ignore her. He stares into the mirror, pinning his hair with one hand and using the same drying technique on himself. His hair is crimped in thick handsome waves when he pulls his hand out. "That looks... great," she's still a lovely shade of pink but is now dressed in black panties and matching camisole top. His fangs show with his wild grin and he takes a step toward her, pressing their hips together suggestively and bringing a hand to her lower back, "Then let's go to dinner just like this." She laughs, her cheekbones burning bright, "I think this is a little too casual for Peter." In one hand, she has his pants and her panties and shirt; in the other, she holds his tee with its various holes and stains in evidence of prior activity, "Where's your hamper?"

He takes the bloody shirt and tosses it into the trash, "Behind you." Claire drops all of their clothes into the round wicker basket. It is a simple gesture, but impressive-personal, impositional, and incredibly domestic. It is monumental in its implications, yet reserved. He moves on numb legs to his set of drawers and slips into a pair of boxer briefs and pants identical to the ones Claire just tossed in the laundry. He turns to see her settled on the edge of the bed slipping into her dark jeans. "Wait," he says and stalks over to her bag. She has left it unzipped, and the contents are mussed though still folded.

He crouches and rifles around her clothes with one hand, coming out with a knee-length ruffled skirt in navy. She nods and says good-humoredly, "Very modest. I thought for sure I was going to be wearing my old cheer shorts I sleep in for dinner." He arches a dark brow, "Like Peter needs an eyeful." She slides the jeans back down exposing delicately browned knees with precise angles due to her petite size before sliding the skirt back up over smooth thighs. He sees her smirking in his periphreal, and his own impetuousness seizes him. He wraps a hand around her waist and tosses her back against the bed, his other hand seeking one small foot. "Go barefoot... I want you thinking about this." He punctuates his growled command by laying himself atop her. Their bodies align perfectly, and his lips seek hers in a kiss to redefine all efforts.

Claire's toned legs squeeze his hips, and she arches against him. "I thought we were going to dinner. You already ruined one pair of panties today," her pout against his mouth is more alluring than dissuasive. He hums with their lips pressed together and rolls his hips into her as he stands. She gasps, rising up on her elbows and watching him with brilliant emeralds. The smirk is a perfect mirror... when bad meets evil. They may never make it out of the bedroom again, at this rate. It has to end eventually though, and Sylar is a grown man, not a hormonally challenged young woman. He breaks her gaze and pulls a new black shirt from his dresser. There is more to this mystery than just their entangled hormones. _Keep it in check._

_Miffed _would be a mild way of stating the vibe exhuding from Peter throughout the rest of the apartment. The sun has long gone down, but it is still quite warm. A trail of small hanging lights lead to the modern kitchen of shining brushed nickel and black appliances. Peter is already hard at work, slicing vegetables and shuffling pots of boiling water. "I was starting to wonder if you two were ever going to come out of there," he jests with visible restraint. "Sorry," Claire chuckles, "we got tied up in his library." Sylar's smile is still irrascible and, though there is only mild sexual implication, he blushes deeply at her apology.

Peter has narrowed eyes that shoot between the two of them irregularly, studying with some impatience. Peter's pensive expression and clenched jaw tug at Sylar's heartstrings. This man expects his long time brother-in-arms ('Gabe')-not the newly awakened degenerate allowing Claire to identify him as Sylar in private, just waiting to fuck his loving niece's brains out as soon as they solve her little problem. It has been a long time since he has blushed at such length, and he stammers over offering to help with dinner. "It's alright, I've got it," Peter replies cuttingly. There is a palpable tension as they settle to their respective plates at the square table after Peter has thrown the ingredients into the pots.

He hadn't meant to put Peter on the spot like this. Then again, it had in no way been his intention when he got up this morning to have a competely redefined world by early evening. Thank you, Claire, for making it impossible once again to predict varying factors. Gabe clears his throat and begins hesitantly, "I, uh-I promised Claire that I would help her in any way possible." Peter's brow furrows in his response, which is obviously just as tentative, "Help her with what?" A snort from next to him leaves Gabe's answer hanging. Claire just can't seem to stop smirking. "What are you worried about, Peter?" Her condescention and inhospitability are shocking to the two men. The man having so much trouble identifying himself at the moment finds he is placed precariously mugwumped on another issue as it becomes instantly apparent that he might have to _choose a side_ in a second.

Peter's patience is finally pushed beyond its limit, "I am worried because _my mother_ called me less than a minute and a half before you put a bullet through the peep hole of my front door and told me that you were on your way over and not to interfere." He pauses, his eyes glued to Claire. "Every thing my mother has a hand in is morally reprobate... and you two!" His hands are spread wide, a helpless gesture. "What about us?" Claire counters hotly. Gabe's eyes volley between them. Peter's eyes finally tear away from his niece, cutting to his long-time and obviously socially lost friend. "How could you do this to him?" Peter spits. The slim blonde parodies a double take in Peter's direction, not a gesture her co-conspirator thought he would ever see her make.

Unable to decide how to identify himself, he attaches signifigance to the fact that he is willing to let his best friend and would-be lover hash it out over his well-being in a completely unnecessary argument. He could waylay all of this excitement by taking control again in this moment, but he feels somewhere inside himself the need to forbear assigning any particular guilt to his person. It is a hard call-not knowing who all is involved or how much they know. With threateningly wide eyes Claire barks, "And **what am I doing** to him?" Peter's hands raise again in a 'let's calm down' move, "It looks like you're hurting him." _Oh, it's getting to the good part_. Claire's freshly glossed lips hang agape. Her fire has been mollified.

"I'm just returning the favor," she states darkly. "Okay," Peter concedes turning to him, "why are you letting her do it?" His thick dark brows raise. He knows that a completely calm smooth soliloquy will pour succinctly from his philandering tongue if he only opens his mouth, but he can only press his lips together tightly and reach for Peter's hand. He presses through flesh the sensations Claire causes; the feeling of a dark blossom in his heart bleeding sunshine. He punctuates this intense sharing with a mental promise, **I'll tell you what I know... later.** Peter pinches the bridge of his nose and rubs at his eyes, a gesture of amicable resignation.

A smile breaks out on Claire's face, "I don't know what you told him, but score." Gabe rolls his eyes, "I _reassured_ him, Claire." She shakes her head and mocks him rolling his eyes. "Well, let's talk about this... later. I want to eat before tomorrow," Peter says, a smile finally chasing onto his face as well. "I've got it," Claire volunteers. She hops up, rounding the table, and pauses to press a kiss into the top of Peter's messy hair. "I'm not going to break him, you know," she promises. Gabe's eyes follow her hips as they pace the kitchen finishing the dinner preparations. On her second pass, he catches Peter's deep hazel eyes boring into him.

_**Dangerous ground**_, Peter thinks clearly in his directon. Sylar's eyes cut away, chasing Claire's visage again as she performs a cheery ballet, serving their dinner. _**You're telling me**_**.** Peter's anger feels sharp and slightly abrupt; _**be careful**_. Claire distracts them with their food and, for a short while, they enjoy it. After a bit, they fall into amicable conversation about the individual foibles of work. He's excited to hear Claire's version of events he is generally already aware of through files, surveillance, and first-hand spying. It's even better to watch these events play off of Peter's animated features, and his sharing of life as a Paramedic in return. They both turn to him expectantly at some point, waiting for his contribution to the conversation, and he has to laugh before giving in and finding a potent sweetness in telling them the truth. How could such pleasure come from such idle banter?

Two hours later, dinner is finished and the dishes cleaned. Claire and Peter have popped the cork on another bottle of wine. Claire's temple is pressed against his knee, and Peter's hand rests lazily on the remote between them on the couch. He can see Claire's toes curling in the long gray carpet next to her nearly empty wine glass. The flicker of the television gives life to dancing shadows across the room. Vincent Price's murder cries are quiet, the volume down low. Gabe is almost certain that Claire is nearing sleep.

Taking a deep breath, he closes his eyes before steeling himself and letting them slide open. He takes in his apartment. His books line all of the walls. Peter's and his television is vintage, a huge monstrosity in commemoration of the late 1960s. He feels a smile ghosting his face. Angela gifted them this couch and their dinner table, and he feels they fit. His bachelor apartment and Peter's bachelor apartment had both been lacking in simple amenities. Their place was starting to look like a real home instead of a library and crash-pad for adolescent males. Peter's eyes glare with white reflection, and Claire shifts against his leg, mumbling sleepily. Yes, he can be Gabe for these two people, he decides stolidly. He needs to be. They can't afford for him not to be.

The movie's theremin-like theme music booms out compared to the quiet dialogue, and Peter switches over quickly to the news. Claire stretches her arms in a wide Y, "That was the longest movie ever." She yawns, toddling off toward the hall. Well, it seems Claire will not be joining the two of them for their Vincent Price midnight movie marathons. He sits with Peter, scanning the news as he does nightly for items of interest. The commercials for the next program clue him in to the late hour. They hadn't discussed it, but Peter's and his eyes catch as he rises to head for his bedroom.

"Are you going to sleep with her?" Peter asks, his eyes glued once more to the television. What a delicate subject. He wars with how to answer. Not yet? Maybe later? "No" would not be the truth. "Yes" isn't going to happen tonight. In his mind, a cog aligns with a matching synchronicity to another, and the deeper meaning surfaces. "She is not herself. I am going to take care of her," he answers solemnly. "Hey," Peter calls out to him, "I'm not mad at you, okay? I mean, it is pretty obvious who is wearing the pants in this situation. Just... don't let her get out of hand... or do something _both of you_ might regret." His honest concern and earnest brown eyes bring the sweet smile back to Gabe's face. "Promise. Night, Pete," and never has the second before opening his bedroom door ever been so long.

Though his love of telekinesis is deep, his true pride rests in his amazing powers of observation. This morning, his room smelled like a library and some fabric softener. Now it is quite rank. He smells sex (both his and Claire's), marijuana, burnt cigar, Pinot Noir, burnt flesh, blood (mostly his), her deodorant, shampoo, and soaps. In the slant of light from the bathroom vanity, Claire's golden thigh is stretched across the center of his bed—her black panty-clad ass stuck out of the blanket and her face pressed into his pillow. Her hair glows white in the dim light and is everywhere-splayed over herself, the pillows, and the comforter. She's sleeping-just at the edge of REM, as best he can tell.

Even without acute hearing, his swallow gulps loudly in the quiet room. Claire sighs in her sleep. _Coward_, he chastises. Gabe changes quickly into his pajama bottoms and slides under the blankets on the far side of the bed. Of course, she had found the pillow he usually slept with under his head and was death-gripping it, face buried deep in the padding, her hair mostly obscuring her features. He settles for laying on his side, resting his head against one corner. She is beautiful and perhaps even stranger than himself. He smiles, reaching one hand out to pull long wheat strands away from her face. A single amused grunt issues from her sleeping form. "Goodnight, Claire," he whispers, turning onto his back and settling in.

Hours pass. They breathe evenly next to one another. He can't miss, however, when she awakens shortly after three, gasping and rising onto her elbows suddenly. The light glints off tears dripping from her chin, but her sobs are silent. He keeps still, his eyes slits, waiting. The Petrelli family only seem to get more complicated, the less of them there are. She helped herself to his living space-his bed-and now he wonders if she is going to help herself to some of his comfort. A hot knot catches in his heart, and it stings to admit he _wants_ her to reach out for his comfort. _Please, reach for me, Claire_. She snorts to herself and slides off the bed, padding silently into the bathroom.

Gabe slides a hand over his face, shaking his head to clear some of the fuzziness of sleep. He can hear her splashing water on her face and sniffling. "Why can't you just leave me the fuck alone?" she mock whispers quite loudly. Any residual sleep disorientation snaps abruptly into wakefulness. "I don't care," her voice rises and then drops again, "I said _I don't care_." Her fists smack uselessly against the swirling cream counter top. "Shut _up_, Sylar," she barks into the empty room. Gabe's mouth is dry. He hears her step across the bathroom, seething into the corner, "He fixed you once, and he can do it again. He is not coddled. He earned all of this. Who are you to designate domestication? _Stop touching me_."

She rushes back into the bedroom, throwing the covers back and practically leaping into the bed next to him. Her breathing is harsh against his neck and ear where she has crammed her face nearly behind his head. This is her running to him for comfort, and he brings an arm around her waist, allowing her permission to relax. "Sylar?" she sniffles pitifully. He hums under his breath, still attempting to feign sleep in her presence. Her small mouth presses to the sensitive flesh below his ear, opening wet and warm against him. She unfurls, sliding all of her tightly strung muscles down him-silk skin on skin.

_Make it stop. Just for a little while._ Her mind is a jumble. Cumulative thoughts string together, a scattergorical perception of his life and hers slipping around like a pit of snakes under her conscious efforts. Claire's persona is underwritten by a blaring white static—a silent yet overbearingly apparent streak in her psyche. The blonde's hot center grinds into his hip bone unrepentantly, her hot breath in his ear even worse. He focuses on the white streak; trying to pry apart this nonsequitor. "_Kill (kill) kill him... Kill him. Kill_," the voice is distorted and the transmission forces his eyes to cross. It doesn't hurt, but his recently awakened mind feels like sleep has distorted his perceptions again.

Claire is grinding and whining impatiently. It's too much in the early morning hour to contemplate. Gabe presses his mouth to hers, unwilling to push his sleep-adled thoughts regarding her sudden ferocious passion or the strange voice from the outer. "_**Go to sleep, Claire**_," he commands. She whines again but stills her persistent hips. Her breathing evens out and the lingering odor of wine is barely perceivable, ghosting the thin layer of stubble lining his jaw. A single tear slips from her cheek and slides warmly down his throat. He pulls her tighter to him, a hand wrapped protectively over the jut of her hip.

It is barely sun up, but his bedroom is incredibly muggy. The strong scent of grapefruit with ginger shampoo lingers in the air. Claire must have taken a shower, and now the steam is cooking him alive. He pushes the blankets off himself and breathes in deeply, stretching. Every day, a new mystery. He extends his hearing to the rest of his domicile. Claire and Peter are in the livingroom, talking quietly. He can almost picture them sitting with two coffee mugs. He resists the urge to invade either of their minds for a clearer image. It wouldn't be proper.

Claire's voice drifts through the rooms to him, "Life is always strange. I don't know what you expect." Peter snorts and huffs impertinently like an animal, "I don't know either. It isn't odd at all when someone hates a particular individual one minute and is all over that person the next." The pause is long. Their quiet breathing fills it, trepidation evident in every inhalation and exhalation. The sound of plastic tapping glass and bristles swiping, very low, very quiet. The sound of Peter's thumb depressing the rubber membrane beneath a button on the remote control several times. Television must be on mute. Yes, underneath he can hear a high pitched electric whine indicating the television is on.

"Did you mean what you said yesterday?" Peter asks. Claire hums in response. "He's fragile, Claire," Peter grinds out. "Isn't everyone?" she mutters. Even from the safe confines of his room, his brother's anger is mushroom clouding with poisonous vehemence. "This isn't a game. Gabriel is a person, and his happiness has been ripped out from under him more times than I care to count. Don't pretend to care about him. Everything else notwithstanding-if you break his heart, Claire..." Is it a promise or a threat? Peter, ever worried for the world... _**I'm worried about you, asshole.**_ His voice is booming, _**She was right-you're a terrible eavesdropper.**_

Gabe struts into the living room in his pajamas, ruffling his hair dramatically and yawning on cue. Peter and Claire are seated on the couch, Peter's coffee mug on the table at his elbow and Claire's next to one bare foot. The handsome Italian man is dressed in a fine casual suit with his hands resting between his knees remote wrapped in limp fingers. Claire is in a different dark tank and velour pants, rubber splitting her wet toe nails as she tends to her fingernails. Having completely missed Gabe and Peter's private exchange, Claire continues the previous conversation, "I'd really like to break your heart... when you've taken down your guard." She shoots him a dark look that makes him smile.

Angela comes, and Peter and she will be leaving for breakfast and last minute details. A busy day, Angela implies repeatedly. Her shrewd wrinkled eyes watch the two of them; but Claire continues crusting crystals and glitter at the end of her French manicured nails, and Gabe is busy ribbing Peter for having to spend so much 'lady time' on this event. Peter is out the door, but Angela can't miss the way the two of them are suddenly eyeing her significantly as she exits. There is an awkward silence weighing the door as it clicks locked behind them.

Claire tightens the caps on her glitter and polish and holds her hands out in front of her, examining her work. He feels paralyzed, captured alone with her. They spent a night in bed together, and yet her awake in front of him again renews his sense of agitation. She smiles up at him, "I am enjoying this." Dressed so darkly, her white hair wound and pulled over one shoulder, she seems more like a dark fairy or Manara temptress-some tiny incarnation of a succubus. She is hypnotizing him with her gaze again, and Peter hasn't even been out the door five minutes. This does not bode well for the rest of the day.

Fathomless green emeralds glitter and shift as she studies him head to toe, "I feel so sensitive when it comes to your moods. I have never... been so aware of someone." Sylar had become so proud of his affect on women-the way their eyes would darken with desire at his insinuations. Gabriel-Gabe-however found that only Claire's attentions would do now, and her attentions could make him feel... very self-conscious. A blush spreads down his chest at her visually perusing him. He speculates to himself that this is probably the 'feeling like meat' sensation about which women complain. "I know of a great way to start our day," she tells him enthusiastically. He arches his brows, forgetting how small he felt in his pajamas just a moment ago. "Don't you have plans?" he asks.

"I do later," she tells him, checking her nails one more time before rising to cross the room to him. "But I already planned on spending the first half of today with you," her arms sweep up around his neck, fingers splayed to keep from touching anything inadvertantly. "And what if I had plans?" he teases. She presses him back into the door frame, "Then I would have to talk you out of them," and she kisses him. Every time it is like he has begun dreaming all over. Her mouth is always sweet and attentive, but there is still an itch somewhere telling him that this is not quite what it seems. No matter how much it feels like... What? What does it feel like? _Am I falling in love?_

"Jump off the Empire State Building with me," she gushes. "_What?_ Even at six in the morning, that place is packed!" The grin is already back, though. What is it about this girl that makes him so giddy? Must be the newfound madness they share. Must be. He's grateful to feel her bra pressing against him instead of bare breasts beneath her shirt. He finds an open admittance of jealousy in his mind. Even though Peter is her uncle, Claire is hot and he doesn't want him looking, not even by accident. She's dressed close enough to decent, and her lithe body writhing against him is still far more convincing than any argument he has ever heard. Her nose scrunches in an adorable way, "Publicity stunt. I've been so well-behaved."

She allows him to throw a t-shirt on, but insists they go without shoes, dropping down on a landing on the eighty-sixth floor. "Ha _ha_!" she laughs outright into the empty space. "Hours are eight to something or other," she states smugly. He smiles to himself. Wear it with pride. It doesn't have to hurt to not always be right. "Well, we have exactly until security gets here then," Gabe retorts. She approaches the side, skin flushed. She takes in a deep breath and lets it out, the wind stealing her words, "Wow, this is really high." He joins her near the edge, looking through the fencing, "Second thoughts?" Her hand finds his, "No."

He lifts them up to the top of the fence and they mock-stand on it. "Ready when you are," she says shallowly. "You're responsible for aim," she tells him, and she tips. Her arms come up around him, and all one hundred and thirteen pounds of her swings outward in a wide arc of a leap. He could easily fly them away, but it's not what she wants. He pushes off against nothing with weak knees, tumbling with her. His heartbeat wracks his ribcage mercilessly, pounding in his throat. Her eyes are closed, a small smile spread across her serene face. He pushes them aloft with a slight thought, aiming for empty pavement. The ground is rising fast.

Claire's breath comes in barely caught little gasps. Her heartbeat rings in his ears over the wind, just as merciless as his own. She is terribly excited, and her eyes come open to search him out in the stinging vertigo. This is going to hurt like a son of a bitch, and he wonders if it will hurt her too. She hasn't mentioned her inability to feel pain, but he assumes it is what they will be solving shortly. Her hands slide up and down his arms-clinging, pulling, fighting yet finding gratification in the fight of the wind. He pulls her to him and presses their lips together. The concrete is unforgiving.

The feeling of his pulverized brain and cranium reforming is agonizing, but he opens his eyes anyway in search for the woman next to him. Blood pours from her split grin. People are gathering, despite the early morning hour. Claire has been recognized. He hears cameras and cell phones. Their bones crack, re-knitting and realigning in union. She pulls her pelvis back into place and whines, "Damn it! Of course I broke a nail!" They rise, adjusting their mangled clothing and the few body parts that remained indecently out of place. She looks down and giggles. They had fallen in each other's arms, but the impact had driven their upper torsos apart; legs entangled, the blood stain they left bears a striking resemblance to a misproportionate heart.

He pulls her into his arms and rises into the air, escaping the small smattering of looky loos. "That was reckless-even for you," he tells her over the wind and her laughter. She scoffs in his ear, "Nothing is reckless with you-brutal, perhaps, but not reckless." He mulls over her words as they continue to rise. The early morning sun is a brilliant burning ball between buildings until they break free of the city line, and then it is just a miraculously illuminating plate over the distant ocean. "I fail to see how you would find that brutal. I know your opinion of playing amateur surgeon," he says amicably. That very Sylar-like smirk has returned to her fae features, "Because my father's dose of the morning news is going to be a hard pill to swallow, and he only has until tomorrow to get used to it."

Thousands of feet below them, the human world has become a circuitry board of miniscule people running their lives to and fro. With a heavy heart and hot cheeks, the force of his mind extricates her from his arms. Sixteen feet seems an appropriate amount of space-close enough to speak easily over the wind but far enough that her scent isn't overriding what is left of his good senses. Her eyes are constantly watching his face, gauging his reactions and moods; Elle didn't give him this much attention when she was seducing him the first time. There is no outward indication of any concern. He has fabricated the sensation of ground beneath her feet and she stands aloft, merely watching.

"Now, tell me what you want," he says severely. She guffaws again-a very un-feminine expression in his opinion-and squawks, "Are you serious? We just dove a thousand feet! Do you think I am scared?" His eyes narrow against the morning ocean glint in the distance. "No," he answers, unamused, "I know that this isn't going to frighten you, but I can't _smell_ you from here and we can't continue... as we are. What do you want, Claire? Why are you doing this to me?" She looks away, into the city. Mirror shadows of her family play across her features-the way Angela's shrewd eyes squint while she is plotting, the firm line of Noah's mouth as considerations take place, and the newly adopted outward jut of Peter's jaw in determination. The eyes that turn his way are all Nathan however-enticing, open, cunning...

"Why don't you know what I want?" She loves to press his buttons. Has she concealed her intentions in any way? Dodge the question; it is irrelevant if you solve the problem. "Just tell me... please. I said I wouldn't refuse you, didn't I?" he implores solidly. No pleading, simply gentle pressure in the desired direction. "Show it to me," she whispers. Only acute hearing allows him to catch the near silent utterance almost swallowed in sky. "What? My sweet spot?" he balks, but only because it is no surprise. "Did you really need to... _what_**ever** you call that just to kill me?" The words are bitten out between clenched jaws. Claire blows a long sigh exasperatedly out her nose, green eyes cutting to the opposite harbor. She snarks, "You can be so dense. The _other_ sweet spot."

Sixteen feet could easily be sixteen miles right at this moment. He studies her profile, waiting for her to return to studying him. She is waiting for his response. Her arms are wound tightly around her narrow waist and that full bottom lip is pressed outward slightly. She looks so comfortable standing two thousand feet in the air on nothing. Her life never gets strange enough for her. The only indication that something is off with this picture is the anxiety visible in one slight little dimple of a line between blonde brows. He draws her to him, bringing his hands to her hips as she comes near. She states flatly to the sky, "We could have had this conversation in your apartment." He chuckles, burying his face in her hair and inhaling deeply, "But the backdrop would be so anticlimactic."

Back in his living room, Claire is unmindful of the couch fabric despite his show of peeling blood-stickied clothing dramatically from his body. She watches the morning news clips, flipping back and forth between channels to catch the different quality and angles of footage of their descent. Someone in a building nearby on an upper floor had the incredible timing of nearly the entire incident on a high-quality Droid phone. Claire's hair came untied less than halfway down and the billowing white sail combined with his dark gangly legs is a striking image. The newscaster notes their kiss. Claire changes the channel again. More speculation on the man, the kiss, and what Claire Bennet is up to. "Excellent," she beams.

He peels out of his ruined clothing and joins her on the couch nude. "What do you need it for?" he prompts from their previous discussion. Claire's eyes barely shift from the television, and she hums at him. He slides comfortably down on the couch next to her and tucks his hands behind his head, dark locks mussed unforgivably. He nudges her bare foot with his bare knee, "Dear, what do you need it for?" She glances over at him and pounces, throwing a leg over his hips. "What do you think I need it for?" she purrs. "This enigmatic noncommital answering questions with questions is getting a little frustrating, Claire. You're not giving me much to work with," he reasons.

She trails her tickling lips over the ridge of trapezius muscle before taking it into her mouth all the way to the tender lateral flesh in the curve of her lips. Her teeth test his skin almost gingerly then snap closed with vice-like intent. It is a fire hot rock against his shoulder, but he can't deny the wet heat of her mouth turns him on. He bucks involuntarily against her. The pain lessens, and that hot wet mouth slides together in a tender intimate kiss, romancing his wounded flesh. "Like you're not baiting me," she titters, gesturing to his naked chest and then sliding her hands up and down his toned muscles appreciatively. He hums in return, eyes closed as he revels in the feeling of her lithe petite form atop his.

"_Claire_," he means for it to be a warning, but it only comes out as a breathless yearning gasp. Her green eyes are hovering before him again, studying the passion in his features. She is wearing his smirk once more between apple cheeks, "I don't know." He wants to be angry-to feel betrayed and used, and possibly baited-but the truth is that he is more than thrilled to take any kind of attention from the young blonde. _Any_. Hanging onto his vicious idolization of the persona he was building before has not brought him far in the social world he lives in now, and though everything about Claire screams of his old life... everything about him now demands that he conduct himself differently.

Her tender little mouth is nibbling against the soft spots of his throat, her velour pants tantalizing him in all the right ways. Gabe doesn't want to admit it, but he gets what she is asking him. He has to try anyway, though, "So what are you wanting me to do exactly? Are you asking me to cut off the top of my head for you?" Claire giggles seductively against his throat and it is too much. He forces himself to pull her away from her delicious insinuations with a fist full of wild silken hair. Undaunted, her lips have taken on a swollen quality and her half-lidded lust-filled eyes are promising him a great deal of fun if he could only drop this conversation. It isn't right, though, and he knows it. He took too much from this girl for her to give so freely, even if it is one of her defining qualities.

Her small hand comes up and winds over his in her hair, _"__**This**_ is not a bridle, honey." He pulls slightly, tilting her head back, and wraps his lips around the sensitive flesh covering her pulse. "Yes, it is," he growls and it is her turn to grind against him wantonly once more under his affections. She gasps and writhes, making it apparent that her wetness has soaked through her clothing as she stimulates herself with his hardness. "Alright!" she is far out of breath, and her cheeks burn red. "Yes, let me cut off the top of your head... and after that I want to crack open your sternum... then I want to cut off your hands and feet _Audition_-style." Each statement is punctuated with a kiss and, even though she is promising him unholy pain, all he can feel is his own immediate arousal. "_What_-style?" he gasps as her tongue laves up his Adam's apple. "With a garotte," she clarifies, breath raising the tiny hairs on damp agonizingly aware flesh.

"What makes you think... _Oh, Claire_... What makes you think that I am going to let you do that?" It is becoming harder to grasp onto rational thought with her delicate mouth enticing him. Her warm center presses against him, legs splayed wide and knees digging into the couch, "Because you want me. You want this... and this is the only way to get it." The hand not tied in her hair drifts to her lower back, feeling the taut pull of the well-defined muscles above her tailbone. She moans just under the line of his jaw. Her breathy sighs tingle against his skin, but he knows she is all truth, "Because when we get so old that we can't remember who we are or why we are together, and all that bleeds through is that you _hurt me_ once... terribly... I need to _know_ that I remember hurting you, too. Hurting you as badly as you hurt me."

His thoughts feel jumbled, unorthodox for his mind. One truth bleeds through over any other compunctions-she intends for them to be together. Together, together. Alongside one another until... "That makes sense," he gasps through his lusty admission. Far away (or so it seems at the moment) "Moonlight Sonata" tones from his bedroom. Claire groans unhappily. "What?" Gabe is brought back to ground zero as she dismounts him and sways toward the bedroom. Her legs are visibly shaking, and it brings a completely warranted grin to his face. "Emma," she calls over her shoulder. He follows her to his room, loving watching her movements. Her muscles and bones, the way they articulate beneath her oh-so-soft skin-it makes him think of a writer who once mentioned the romance and passion a woman's spine could elicit.

Her back is to him, and he can see brilliant blue—the glow of her cell-lining her profile. "What is it?" he asks again. She hums as his arms come around her waist from behind, "She wants to go to lunch early. She's excited." Gabe laughs into her hair, "Couldn't imagine why." His own phone breaks into a high-pitched, nearly unrecognizable muzak adaptation of "Ain't It Kinda Wonderful"-Peter's ringtone. He groans, squeezing her to her smallest in his strong arms, "The world intervenes." She turns to face him, "Kiss me. Before the world swallows us up." He can't help but smile, "You're coming back... tonight." It's not a question, but she nods anyway and he lowers his mouth to hers, slow and exploratory, every time as good as the first. "Oh, Tantalus, it seems it is just out of your reach again..." She slips from his grasp.

Two in the morning isn't really that late when you're coming home from a bachelor party. Gabe and Peter were quite drunk less than fifteen minutes ago but, as soon as Rene let them out of the SUV, they both sobered up quickly. Peter's key in the front door and the hiss of the air conditioner are the only immediate sounds, but Gabe's keen hearing detects quiet water sloshing. The whole apartment reeks of Claire and her perfumed lady's products, and he suddenly feels quite absurdly jealous at the thought that she might smell as good to his brother as she does to himself, what with Peter having acquired and re-acquired her power the easy way multiple times. "Hello!" Peter calls out in the cool room.

"_In Peter's bath!_" Claire calls from within their apartment. They both follow the sound to Peter's bedroom, which is impossibly messy compared to his flatmate's. The bathroom door is slightly cracked, and it is a sauna just like Gabe's was bright and early in the morning. "Was there a stripper?" the young blonde chirps unseen from the tub. "You bet," Peter answers, flopping down on his unmade bed. "Was my dad there?" her tone is incredulous. "He damn sure was," Gabe chortles. "Oh, man, how fun was that?" she snarks. Peter cracks an answer, "Actually, between your dad and Rene, it was a blast. Now, get out of my room. I have a big day tomorrow." Claire's laughter is boisterous in the quiet, "Very mature. '_I'm getting married tomorrow-get out of my room!_'" Her uncle snorts in her general direction, face down in his pillows, "Funny, Blondie, funny. Now go!"

After only a slight amount more sloshing, Claire says from within the bathroom, "I didn't bring a towel in here." Both of the men groan, and Gabe volunteers to fetch her his robe. He returns bearing a terry fluff of black that engulfs her all the way from neck to ankles. "Nice," she coos, cuddling the fabric. Instead of exiting she flops down on the bed next to Peter, a handful of dirty clothes and huge white gem-encrusted heels drop unceremoniously next to his bed. "Did you get really drunk?" she asks the side of Peter's messy head, pulling short gentle fingers through his dark hair. "Oh, yes," he mumbles. She frowns at him, "You shouldn't have a hang over." The thin Italian man rolls over finally, to face his roommate and niece, "I'm just exhausted. I spent half the day with my mother who has been driven mad-" ("Short trip," Gabe chimes in and is rewarded with a hazel glare) "-by all this... _woman_ stuff. Then I spent the evening with a bunch of _**mad men**_ who ran me ragged _all night long_."

Gabe's grin is cheshire-wide, and he has to turn away from Claire to stifle his snigger. She can't imagine what they would be doing that could be so bad. Peter dug up graves with her, hunted down criminals, ran from the government. Hell, Peter and she have one of the most action-packed relationships she's known-next to her pseudo-lover and adopted father, that is. "What were you doing?" she asks, clearly alarmed. "You know what?" he cocks one brow at her, very reminiscent of his best friend. "The stripper was the easy part," he tells her. At the end of the bed, the lanky glass of water responsible for the current strife and quite a bit of past strife finally bursts into outright laughter. Peter glares in his direction, but Gabe ignores him, trying to chortle to himself with a bowed head.

"What did you ladies do?" Peter asks her, trying hard to ignore all the humor at his expense. She shrugs, one bare shoulder sliding from under Gabe's black robe. "Went out dancing," she answers. The betrothed drops his head to the pillow once more, grumbling, "You always do that." Claire giggles quietly, "Yeah, but tonight was special. It was fun. Don't knock it." She pauses for dramatic effect, "We could have gotten a stripper too, you know. A Chippendale with a nice, fat-" Gabe interrupts from the end of the bed, cheekbones rouged exaggeratedly, "Claire!" He turns to find her bare shoulder on his side, and the red stands out starkly against the white surrounding as the rest of his face pales at the sight. "Bedtime!" he announces loudly. Peter laughs into his pillow, "Jack ass."

"It must be something for Emma to go dancing with her powers fully manifested," Gabe says conversationally in the hall between their rooms. Claire's voice in the darkness from behind him is calm-belying the way their hearts beat madly at the thought of entering a bedroom together again with the intentions of... well, with intentions. "She says it is. She didn't used to care to go out-like, at all-she told me. I guess the three of us have been slowly dragging her out of her shell," she tells him. Gabe smiles. In the safety of his home, receiving the well-to-doing compliments of his friends, it is hard for him to believe what his own shell once was. This is a world apart. It isn't so hard to explain to himself how pleased he is that Emma feels... _better_ with the world. It was all he ever really wanted for himself, and others as well, now that he has grown some.

"I waited all day for this," he growls, reaching behind him to trap her wrist. Claire's gasp is swallowed in the heady mouth devouring her. She grunts against his lips but remains pliant. When he finally breaks away, breathless yet still as urgent, she says, "I only packed one bag and we have ruined almost all of my clothes. So, unless you are going to do laundry..." Gabe's hands rove unmitigated, not even slightly deterred by her grousing, considering the lack of reasonable argument with her being in his clothing, after all. The robe is lost to the floor, and the chill of the newly cooled apartment tickles her freshly washed skin. Though she seems to be protesting, the flush over her-and the way she complies with even the slightest of his movements-tells a different story. Finally she slides her hands into his hair and fists them tightly, pinning his mouth to hers and distracting his wayward tentacles, "Tomorrow. After the wedding, I promise."

Her green eyes lock onto his beautiful brown orbs, and a long studious moment passes between them. "I can't believe you're here," he says into the silent space betwixt them. "You hate me," he reminds her, pressing his forehead down to hers. Claire's brows pull together, "I don't know how you can say that with a straight face after how far your tongue was just down my throat." He laughs in a quiet, self-conscious way-afraid to admit how fragile he really feels. "Are you scared?" she asks him in a hushed tone. His swallow is thick and non-consoling, "Yes." An apple cheek presses against his own as a smile spreads across the petite blonde's features, "I love your honesty. Let's go to bed."

It is as close to an admission of her affections as they have come yet, and it titillates his blood beseiged heart. Claire clothes her sleight five-foot frame with easy grace, slipping into her pajamas as though she has been dressing in front of others her whole life. There is that slap of jealousy again, but it is quickly waylaid by her sliding under his covers and snatching up his pillow to press into her face and audibly inhale. He can't help his smile as he slithers into his own side, scooting close to her without being impolite. She saves him some worry and scoots over, pressing herself to his shoulder and resting her head next to his. In a few moments, her even breaths are still tickling his ear, but she has drifted off. He isn't far behind, smile plastered to his face.

She wakes much the same way she did before, sitting upright abruptly; and he responds to her in kind as before, yet even more jostled this morning as their limbs have managed to wind around one another in the night. "Now is perfect," she hisses. "Sylar... Sylar... I know you're awake," she growls. "Stop calling me that," he grouses. She hums and tucks her hair behind her ears. It falls down her chest regardless, a curly unbelievable mane, free of split ends. "Not your name anymore, sweets?" she purrs. She places her hands on either side of his face and he concedes, opening his eyes to the early gray light. "Gabriel, honey, get up. I wanna take the top of your head off." He can't help the way his eyes widen and the loud dramatic gulp that issues from his suddenly dry throat. "Peter's right in the other room," he stalls. "I'm pretty sure he left already," she answers, holding him with her look.

Claire's dark eyes narrow and she pushes at him, _**Man up, you fool**_. His brows come together and his frown is truthfully still a little terrifying to her. No matter how much he allows her, this man once pinned her down and took something that might have been given under other circumstances; without duress was the implication. "Claire, it's-" he pauses as though listening, "five-thirty in the morning. Just..." A long question hangs in the air between them before he pulls her down to him, seeking her soft lips to appease. "_Now_," she breathes, slipping her tongue between his parted lips. "Let me wake up a minute," he states impassively. She sits up again, turning away from him. He barely catches the bitten lip she keeps to herself.

Her yellowed hair hangs between them, and he reaches a hand up to stroke her back. "I was so tired I didn't even ask. How did it go with my dad?" Gabe laughs, handsome white-fanged smile in the early morning. "He told me that he had no intention of asking me about that kiss whatsoever because Peter told him you kept your promise to splatter my brains all over my own living room if he gave you Elle's gun for your birthday. Apparently he explained after Peter asked him how you got your hands on it, so... brilliant Petrelli response. It was all very dramatic and exciting. He said later that he was going to ask you about that kiss. It was between you and him. Said he was sure you would be able to explain it to him," he concludes. Claire's smirk is truly inspirational.

Gabe amends with one more little add-on, "And he does not want to _ever_ discuss it with _me_." She giggles into her hand. That same hand searches out his own. "Don't be nervous," she tells him, " I mean, I won't lie to you... it is going to hurt like **hell**, but it will be over before you know it." Sitting up, he takes her warm soft body into his arms again and confesses, "It definitely couldn't be for anyone else." The fathomless pools she raises to gaze at him are mesmerizing, and suddenly his throat feels constricted, heartbeat rampant. Bright and early in the morning, too. Where did she learn to keep these hours? Oh yeah, these are Sylar's favorite hours. When he is the only one awake, and prey is blearly stumbling about in its modern comforts.

With an inexplicable synchronicity, they begin to prepare for this endeavor... except it is not so inexplicable. In a way, for just a moment, they had been together their entire lives and therefore knew the intricacies of one another's movements. There was only one unhinged cog. Every now and again, Claire would bump him. Not a huge derailment, mind you, but a brush of her chest across his back as she passed to retrieve the towels; a hip to his hip as she slides out of her shorts and he straightens the coverlet... enough to _distract_ him from his task. It was just enough from her, apparently. She stands before him in a tank and panties and he sits on the edge of the bed facing her, knees apart and towels stretched out on the made bed behind him.

His hands reach for her, pulling her knees between his own. "Ready?" she asks, an entirely different kind of breathless. There is no need to worry about there being enough light or that there might be too much blood... There is no need to worry that she may inadvertantly kill him. Gabriel draws his breath in deep, chest raised outward, and places the tips of his forefingers together at the center of the back of his head. Her perfect pink lips are open slightly, eyes glued to him. Nothing can be done for the searing screech he lets loose. His breaths catch, attention wavering. Claire's small, strong hands come up to his shoulders to steady him, and he finishes the job. Those gentle hands tangle in his hair and jerk up, tearing his cranium off with a popping sound.

He falls back to the bed, limp and involuntarily twitching. Claire mounts the bed and crawls around him, placing his cranial cap carefully next to him bloody side up on the towel. She cradles his face in her lap, "Are you alright?" Her fingers trace his features, wisping down his nose and curving his cheeks. "No," he croaks, right eye convulsing closed. Claire nods, pressing her lips together tightly, and slides him down to her knees angling the top of his head up. It is impossible to sense her at first, tiny fingers crawling through his brains like wicked spiders. Eventually the hot pit parts with a single line of pressure down the middle. "I can see it," she whispers, "but I just..."

"Claire, I have to tell you something," he gurgles brokenly. She ignores him, tracing her thumb lightly down the center of his brain again. Claire's perplexity grows with each passing second. He isn't as tough as she is-hasn't really practiced. Every time he has ever been injured, it was all about show and never about stamina. He is going to pass out soon-from pain or overload, she doesn't care which; and if he does, she will not be getting her answers. "Not now," she tells him. "Yes now," his voice cracks, "I'd do anything for you. After I realized my mistake-after I did it. You made it sound like rape... in your book-" She growls over him, "Do you feel like you're being raped?" His stomach twitches, back arching slightly, and she worries for a second that she might lose his attentions to blood loss before he finally comes back around again.

"No! No, I... I would do anything for you, Claire. I'll do anything to fix it," his sobs pull her from her task finally. Somewhere inside of her, the young girl that Claire once was-with a heart bleeding right out of her eyes-_twinges_ with inexplicable sympathy for this man. "I know you will," she whispers to his tear-stained face, "Now help me." Gabriel's shaking breath tears in and out of his chest, but she immediately feels the pressure of him in her mind rooting around. A tingle follows the end of her finger, and gray matter just like all the other gray matter suddenly stands out to her perception. This place. This place understands and makes sense from non-sense. She finds herself flooded with a sensation that wholly belongs only to the man below her.

"Oh, _Gabriel_, I can see it. Intuitive aptitude... it's not _understanding_. It is cohesion... comprehension, linear cogent. _You can make a straight line out of what most perceive as random dots_. Yes, just like Connect The Dots." He seizes slightly under her hands, and she can't help the expletive that escapes unbidden. She re-caps his skull quickly, hands shaking. The laceration dissolves beneath the tips of her glittering manicured nails to perfect smooth forehead. He looks up at the ceiling, panting. Salty streaks down his cheeks whiten in the early morning light. "It's hard to be a man when there is a gun in your hand," she consoles him.

His cat-like agility is always something to be admired, and the twist of his hips and his broad shoulders suddenly looming over her are only a backdrop to the smoldering bedroom eyes boring into hers. "How did it feel for you?" Gabriel's voice is low, lustful. She knows that Peter and he have discussed this at great length-both of them having contrived a list of wonderings regarding their respective fathers, relatives, and any other potential empaths that may exist. She can't say now whether the overall effect will be permanent, but it does indeed feel as _inciteful_ as his memories of excising the powers of others. "I can't believe you're here," she echoes his sentiments of the previous night. Claire can't perceive it, but Gabe is fully aware that the glaring white streak in her unconscious mind-the overt static-is gone. Vanished.

"Do you have big plans for me, Claire?" he growls. The shift is so unequivocal that genuine fear clutches at her heart. Did she screw something up in there? Is this really Sylar? "Actually, other than dressing up and playing nice, this was about as big as it got for us today," she answers, stifling the urge to pant and possibly attempt to seduce him. He needs no prompting however and presses the prominent bulge in his pants between her parted thighs, bringing their faces close. "Are you scared?" his tone is mocking yet still seductive. "Sylar-" she starts and he interrupts smoothly, "-Gabriel." Her smile is lost in his mouth, but he still catches the glimmer in her eye. She moans his name under his tongue, and he answers with a slow roll of his hips.

His large, delicate hands slide along her flesh in an otherworldly rhythm. Long fingers trail over her hip, pulling her tank upward. "Do you understand now about this perfect-" he interrupts himself by kissing up her stomach, dragging her shirt over the swell of her breasts. He continues, trailing his mouth from breast to breast, "-voluptuous body. How you will never die? What you are capable of?" The watchmaster's hands massage and pinch her rosed nipples, mouth chasing after. His bedwear is hardly sufficient to prevent any sensation, and it is painfully obvious how wet she is through her panties. She snatches a handful of his hair, bringing his face up to hers, "I meant what I said. I'm going to keep you around long enough for us to forget who we are. Just try and get away."

His desperation is clearly evident in his kiss, but he has never been one to let sleeping dogs lie. "And when I don't live up to your expectations?" Her eyes roll into the back of her head as he increases the tempo of the roll of his hips implying vividly that he has very little chance of not living up to her expectations in this moment. "Then I'll just have to eat you alive," she pants hotly. He pauses, looking down on her from so very close, their breaths intermingling, "Claire, that's disgusting." Her giggle is subdued as she is still quite turned on, "It will grow back." They seem to share a smirk now. He no longer finds it out of place on her features instead it is enticing and a little liberating.

His hands, which had so thoroughly incapacitated her a moment ago, had stilled with their conversation, but now they drop to her hips indicating his intentions. He plunders her mouth as he slides her panties from her body, stealing any protests under gentle pleasurable ministrations meant to hypnotize. The way this woman speaks to him makes him want to ravage her body in ways no man will ever be capable of replicating-not in their wildest dreams. He growls possessively at thoughts of other men perusing _his_ Claire. No, that simply can never happen. She said she was keeping him around; therefore, all he has to do is stand firmly between her thighs at all times, barring any intruders. Mission accepted. His room is already a mess from the night before, and he adds to it by throwing her panties randomly off the bed. Two days ago-sin. Today-orgasmic miracle. Peter would be so jealous of the mess, after years of harassment by his once wayward flatmate.

He rises above her, one hand gently pawing her breast, and edges the waist of his pants down with the other, baring a ridged well-shaped hip and long hard cock. "Gabriel-" her fearful tone hardly disguises the underlying lust the visage incites. He hushes her gently, huge brown eyes imploring, "Do you want me? Do you trust me, Claire?" Her breathless laugh is barely derisive, "That's always how it starts." He hushes her again, pressing his lips to hers and opening his mouth, tongue snaking out. The hand that had paused for so long on her breast slides gently over her nipple, and he traces a line down her throat to its mate with his succulent lips. When the small blonde finally allows a brittle moan to break free, he slides the head of his cock up her labia to tickle the sensitive nub at the very apex.

Claire's burst of, "_You have got to be kidding me!_" is both inappropriate and hilarious. He laughs with her tit in his mouth and covers it with a wide swipe of his tongue across the bud trapped between his lips. Claire moans unrepentantly, her hips rising to meet him. She can't figure out how he has wrapped himself around her the way he has-what with their difference in height-but she most certainly does not care to pursue the thought, since he absolutely knows what he is doing. The soft head slides over her sensitive bundle of nerves repeatedly until she is nearly squealing; then he slides down her labia again and back up. "_Oh,_ you bastard," she growls, desperate for him to be inside her. He does it again. "I hate you," she cries.

That dastardly mouth slides up her chest and begins to chew on her throat. "Oh, you remember now," he teases. She whines his name petuantly, and it stirs his sympathy. He rises to study her fathomless emeralds, entranced with the way she is begging. She has never begged him for anything. He kisses her, slowing the hand on her tit and speeding the hand on his cock, rubbing furiously against her clit. She bursts, back arching, and her fluid covers his erection. Her hands grasp at his shoulders, pulling him to her as she keens into his mouth. Her mouth can't seem to get enough. She quakes below him, writhing and arching as the pleasure overwhelms her.

"Gabe," she is panting, tears squeezing from the corners of her sparkling eyes. He grins down at her, "I like it better when you call me Gabriel." She obliges, pulling him down to her reddened face to kiss the hell out of him. His slick erection teases her mound, and it causes her to moan. "I like it better when you're suffering," she growls. Gabriel's eyes are closed, and he nods absent-mindedly. "I mean it," her white teeth sink into his shoulder, tiny razor-sharp claws digging into his pec muscles. His dark features scrunch, and he rewards her with an indignant, "Ow!" She smirks up at him with freshly kiss-swollen lips. "That wasn't very nice, _Claire_," the evil and decidedly seductive tone he has used so many times when saying her name has returned. It still gives her shivers.

Claire places one hand over his heart, looking up at him with wide innocent eyes. It does not cause Gabriel to feel guilty. Instead it brings his arousal to a heady pique. He begins to lean in again-no doubt planning on capturing those perfect little lips, but Claire has wedged one beautifully tanned thigh between their abdomens. She places one petite foot square in the center of his chest and shoves hard. Gabe's significantly larger form rocks back and the momentum carries him off the end of the bed in an undignified sprawl. Claire crawls to the end of the bed and looks down at him. He looks up at her expectantly, undaunted.

"Much better. Stay," she tells him. His thick brows shoot up his forhead, but his grin remains in place and he does not move-erection flagging between them. Claire's wheat locks hang down her back and spill over her shoulders a wild tangled mess. She leans forward solicitously, pressing her round hanging breasts together, and blows him a kiss. The blonde stretches languidly, the perfect heart of her ass high in the air for a moment (_**Man, the view from the other side**_, he thinks). Her sensitive nipples brush lightly against the coverlet, inducing a small moan before she slides off the edge of the bed to the floor and slinks up between his splayed legs. She presses her tits to the insides of his thighs, her breath ghosting over his desire. _Is she really going to?_ "Oh, yes," she breathes, causing him to twitch. The head of his cock disappears into Claire Bennet's mouth.

His tribulations and interest in control of the situation are ruthlessly abandoned in exchange for sensations far more pleasurable than he ever could have imagined. Curled in a rigid pose, his hands remain locked in balled fists against the floor. It is impossible to speculate while his most tender of regions is being stroked and kissed by the object of all his affections, and it is not long before he feels the need to warn her. The blonde takes no heed though, instead burying her face in the soft fur at the base and moaning around him as he blows his load.

He knows the problem her virginity presented to her during her initial experimentations and with cheerleading as a teenager, but it doesn't stop him from reminding her when she complains of their lateness that she could have skipped _most_ of that shower if she had wanted terribly to be early. Gabe imitates his gesture from before to cause the wavy hair she had complimented, then moves to his shoes, tie still hanging loose. Claire leans into the mirror, braided and updone hair less messy than her quick-fix would have implied it would be, and draws her face with quick fluid practiced gestures. She reaches for him, and he tolerates her tying his bowtie for him. His aggravation is quickly ameliorated by her turning to offer her zipper. The already fitting cream becomes a second silken skin.

She was supposed to wear the white encrusted shoes she had worn out the night before, but she had pulled out her favorite black boots and told him with a knowing smirk, "I want people to know who my date is." Peter had blessed him with a black on black tuxedo. The only one at the whole ceremony, but he didn't mind being singled out in this instance. It was a favor in a number of ways, and he appreciated when Pete thought of him in such little ways (that cost immensely). Gabe slides a hand up the back of her pantyhose, only finding the edge of her silken panties with excruciatingly sensitive fingertips. "Gorgeous," he tells her. "Knock it off," she grouses, pushing his hands back down her legs, "You absolutely _cannot_ ruin this outfit." It's tempting to point out how many outfits she has ruined on her own, but it's just his tendency to needle. So he gives them a once over, then again in the mirror, before deciding they look ready as they are ever going to be.

Gabe had spotted Noah, just as Noah had spotted Peter and Claire disappearing into a private room. He was curious, but not on guard. His conclusion is to leave Noah's next outburst to Claire, and instead goes to find the mother of the bride to congratulate her. "What happens when she starts to get older and you look the same age?" Claire monotones, studying the room with a nonchalance that is whole-heartedly dishonest. Peter's hazel eyes are watching her, a mortal glisten apparent. He tells her with an overly compassionate tone, "I'll turn it off for a while or I'll shapeshift according to the years. Everything and everyone dies, Claire. I've known that for a long time-much longer than it has not been an option for me. I want to love her while she's here, as much as I can. There will never be another like her."

Tears slip down Claire's face, and Peter's tone softens even further, "This isn't about Emma and I getting married, is it?" His passionate sympathy is compelling, and those forbeared tears begin to escape unmitigated. "I can't see... getting married or having children or... or anything! _Just_... making more freaks for the freak show! **Who lives this way**?" Unmindful of his insanely expensive tuxedo (his mother's lost her mind again), Peter kneels before her. Knees pressed to the toes of her black high heels, he grasps her hands in his own, _"People._ People live this way everywhere, Claire. People with abilities, people with deformities, people with mental instabilites, people with handicaps..."

She sees Peter's bottom lip tremble slightly at her unswayed expression. "Claire, if you don't believe it, then why are you _teasing_ him?" He asks abruptly. "**I'm not**-" she spits venomously, but he interrupts succinctly. "_You're not_? You didn't come into our home and make a mess? You didn't move into his room for the weekend? You didn't _kiss him on national television_?" Peter's tone rises with each question. She blushes, "You saw that?" He rises to his feet and sticks his hands in his perfect hair before jerking them back out, annoyed with hair product, _**"Everyone**_ saw that, Claire!"

Her uncle brings his sharp Italian features close to her face, so close she can smell the white wine he'd been sipping. "You better figure this out because you're already in over your head. I don't know what's going to happen to us over this, but Emma and I have already discussed a place, and I am not going to abandon him to your... **devices**... _especially_ if you are following in my mother's footsteps." His sharp words hurt almost as badly as the vision of her long deceased father's demise. A spear piercing her heart, "... _Peter._" He has rejoined the party, however, and left her alone in a room constructed of dreams she can never realize. She cries openly for several minutes before seeking out the restroom to freshen up and take on the world anew.

The ceremony is a welcome distraction, though it feels like the eyes are split between the happy couple and the two of them at opposite ends of the stage-a double spectacle. The reception offers only mild relief. Mingling shows that, even in high and common society, a publicity stunt is unanimous with 'talk to me,' and Claire manages to avoid Noah for hours with this planned bodyguard. Eventually, the senior Bennet wises up and takes a seat at Gabriel's table to wait for the small blonde to return. Gabe smiles thinly at the older man, but tolerates his presence, resigned to allowing Claire to handle this as she sees fit. Claire has just leaned into her father's cheek, lips puckered, when the world stops.

Gabe's attention re-centers on this new phenomena with sharp acuity, but a firm rump curved in all the right places has settled comfortably in his lap. Mere seconds have transpired, but an eternity of confusion has overwrought him. Claire turns to him, long blonde curls around her face framing a wicked smirk. Her cheer uniform is a neon parody of blue and red, skirt impossibly short. "Now this is what I'm talking about," she drawls in a staunch sort of way. It sounds a bit like Angela, sharp and yet the tone implies... Her hands grasp his shoulders firmly, her upper torso contorted completely around to face him. "A man's width on these shoulders! Look at that muscle!" Her laughter is not enticing.

"Stop it, Clarity," a low voice behind him protests. It is ripe with angry irritation. His surprise becomes the urge for flight when the owner of that voice steps to the edge of the table within sight. It is himself-more wiry, and somehow seemingly taller, but definitely him. He is dressed in a sharp pair of black trousers and vest with a white pinstriped shirt and bright red tie. He looks... a bit like how Nathan dressed. "Come on, this is a good find," she teases, leaning into Gabe's ear. Locked in place, Gabriel suddenly recalls how hard he had to fight to get to this place and shoots forward to wrap a hand around his Claire's immobile bicep.

"Both of you stop messing around and grab them," a third demands. Gabe's eyes alone shoot toward the sound. Dressed in a sharp blue suit, the elusive special looks nothing like he has ever seen her. Her white blonde hair is tied up; and she is clean, aware, and completely daunting. These strangers wrap their hands in various places around him and Claire, and Illyana tells them, "For better or worse, here it goes!" The table and chairs, their family, the beautiful reception, this bright afternoon disappears. "Claire!" Gabe screams, uncertain whether she is aware or can even hear him as the darkness swallows them, lost in space and time.

* * *

><p>Author's Note: That would be the end, boils and ghouls, of this particular arc for these two. However, if you are interested in following the story an alternate timeline will be introduced and continued in the "SuperJail" arc-offshoot I am working on. Drop me a note; like all good author's I live off of caffeine and reviews, and can only provide myself with one of those so hook a brother up 3 <p>


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